Taliban’s new media guidelines ban TV dramas with female actors, make women journalists wear hijabs
Taliban’s new media guidelines ban TV dramas with female actors, make women journalists wear hijabs
Taliban insurgents have published guidance on how women should be dressed and told television drama producers to avoid depicting their female characters.
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The Islamic insurgent group’s new media unit which runs social media and posts a general media policy on Facebook and Twitter also instructed women to not appear in public unless they were veiled.
“We strongly advise the Taliban media unit and its media committee not to show the younger generation any suggestive pictures of women wearing clothing and public duties which might go against our religious teachings,” it said.
The group said women should cover themselves with a black burqa and when needed, use a colored scarf while out in public or at home. “Any form of immodesty including wearing western dresses, western clothing which is hard to control and appearance in public without wearing full face veil, double face veil, burqa and hijab [veil] should be avoided,” it said.
The Taliban have adopted new media platforms as a new tool to spread their message through articles and social media posts. The new policies make it clear that women are subordinate to men and cannot work.
The new media guidelines, posted in English, also prohibit the Taliban’s ideologues from providing, or being provided with, any information or information relayed to them.
It instructed families of Taliban members to inform the Taliban authorities when they give birth, saying the information would be used to deal with the local “forces of interest” who should be taken to task.
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The Taliban, waging an insurgency against the central government in Kabul, launched an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing 148 people, most of them children.
The Taliban’s leaders have seized on what they see as persecution of Muslims to support suicide bombings targeting civilians and what they say is a rein in of the west.
“Some western media have reported from Iran about innocent Muslims being killed in drone attacks and people-on-people clashes in Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq,” the guidance said.
“The terrorism and murders in these Muslim countries have definitely given rise to a mindset in the American and other western circles to interfere in Muslim nations.”
It said the movement had lifted its ban on women traveling abroad and writing books.