Kabul: Following the Taliban's nationwide order to close all beauty parlours, dozens of Afghan women demonstrated against the ban on Wednesday. To disperse the protest, security personnel fired their weapons into the air, stun guns, and fire hoses.
International officials were alarmed by the Taliban's announcement earlier this month that they would give all salons in Afghanistan one month to wind down operations and close shop. They were concerned about the impact on female entrepreneurs.
The Taliban claim they are banning salons because they provide services that are against Islamic law and put the families of the groomsmen through financial hardship during wedding celebrations.
The Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issued the decree, which is the most recent restriction on Afghan women and girls' freedoms and rights after edicts banning them from public places, including schools, and from most employment opportunities.
Dozens of makeup artists and beauticians gathered in Kabul, the Taliban's capital, to protest the ban in a rare display of public defiance of Taliban orders. One protester, who introduced herself as Farzana, declared, "We are here for justice." "We want work, food, and freedom."
To disperse the crowd, the Taliban sprayed the women with water and fired their rifles into the air.
Later, Farzana urged protesters to remain in their groups by announcing that the women were travelling to the UN mission in Afghanistan.
According to one protester who spoke with The Associated Press, the demonstration got underway in the capital's Shar-e-Naw neighbourhood around 10 a.m. For fear of retaliation, she did not want to reveal her name.
Because this decision to shut down beauty salons affects our lives, she said, "the goal of our demonstration was to persuade them (the Taliban) to think twice and reverse their decision." "All of us, between 50 and 60 women, took part. We lived by the motto "work, bread, and freedom."
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When the Taliban arrived to disperse the crowd early in the afternoon, the protest was still going on, she claimed. On the protesters, they used stun weapons. "They put two or three of our friends in the car and took them," she claimed.
There was no one from the Taliban-run government available to comment on the protest right away. The Taliban's use of force to disperse the protesters was criticised by the UNAMA mission in Afghanistan.
The latest violation of women's rights in #Afghanistan, reports of the forceful suppression of a peaceful demonstration by women against the ban on beauty salons, were described as "deeply concerning" by the UN mission in a tweet. Afghans are entitled to peacefully express their opinions. It must be upheld by de facto authorities.
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In the meantime, the Ministry for Vice and Virtue, which is run by the Taliban and had earlier in July announced the ban on beauty parlours, declared Wednesday that it was destroying goods and instruments used for the "promotion of music and corruption" and shared pictures of bonfires on Twitter.
According to Sharia (Islamic law), the ministry tweeted that the materials destroyed "were collected from immoral programmes in Kabul and some provinces in the past few months, which caused the loss of our youth and the decline of society."