We have news from Afghanistan. No, it’s not good news. This is no surprise – it would be a surprise if we had good news.
For decades, Afghanistan has been an experimental laboratory of dystopia. Compared to what takes place in Afghanistan, the dark visions of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley or Philip Dick look like amusement parks for slightly perverted adults.
When we say that nothing worse can happen in that ill-fated place, more, new records of paranoid authoritarianism are being constantly broken, and the bar of social insanity is being raised higher and higher.
These days the Taliban are celebrating the third anniversary of their seizure of power. Since the mood is celebratory, they thought to have a feast with a bill, based on an earlier decree of 2022 – a “social traffic code” so repugnant as to scandalize even the United Nations field mission (the UN missions, as you understand, are not easily triggered). So under this new “code”, Afghan women, with threatened penalties ranging from warning to confiscation of property and imprisonment, will not only have to continue to have their faces and the rest of their bodies fully covered when they are out of the house . . .
These days the Taliban are celebrating the third anniversary of their seizure of power. Since the mood is celebratory, they thought to have a feast with a bill, based on an earlier decree of 2022 – a “social traffic code” so repugnant as to scandalize even the United Nations field mission (the UN missions, as you understand, are not easily triggered). So under this new “code”, Afghan women, with threatened penalties ranging from warning to confiscation of property and imprisonment, will not only have to continue to have their faces and the rest of their bodies fully covered when they are out of the house . . .
Continue reading @ AAI.
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