Taliban ban women from Kabul parks

The Taliban have banned women from visiting all parks in Kabul, excluding them still further from public life in Afghanistan.

A spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry told the BBC those managing parks in the capital had been told not to allow women in.

The group claims Islamic laws were not being followed at parks.

Women's rights and freedoms have been severely restricted since the militant Islamists seized power in August 2021.

Under Taliban rules on segregating people by gender, women have been allowed to visit parks on three days every week - Sunday, Monday, Tuesday - and men on the remaining four.

Now women won't be allowed even if accompanied by male relatives.

"We've done this because in the past 15 months, despite our efforts, people have been going to the park and not respecting Sharia laws," Mohammed Akif, spokesman for the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told the BBC.

"The restriction is for all women, whether they are with or without a mahram [male escort]."

The ban on women extends to amusement parks that usually have rides like bumper cars or a ferris wheel, and where families visit together with their children. It appears to be in force only in the capital for now, but in the past such rules have eventually applied across the country.

( Source BBC)