[For ordinary people, the ministry
was the face of the regime, said Robert Crews, a historian of Afghanistan at
Stanford University. “It is the institution that most Afghans were likely to
encounter, and it is one that the leadership prioritized above all others.”]
By Haq
Nawaz Khan, Ellen
Francis and Adam Taylor
Nearly 20 years later, the Ministry
for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is back.
[Who
leads Afghanistan’s new government? Here’s what we know about the Taliban’s top
officials.]
Following its return to power last
month, the Taliban this week formed an interim
government, announcing a slate of provisional ministers, all male and most
from the Taliban’s old guard. Among them: a little known cleric called Mohamad
Khalid, named to lead the restored department.
In an English-language list of new
appointees distributed by the Taliban, the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue
and Prevention of Vice was the only name not translated.
A body under the previous
government, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, was not included at all,
apparently having been disbanded. Protesters across major cities this week the called on the
militants to give women seats in government and to run the country with less
repression than the last time around.
In Kabul, some people expressed
fears that the return of the ministry meant that the Taliban would not seek to
change.
“People have stopped listening to
loud music in public … fearing the past experiences from when the Taliban last
ruled,” said Gul, a Kabul resident who only gave his first name due to safety
concerns. “I personally didn’t see any forced prayers. But there is fear in
everyone’s minds.”
A Taliban spokesman did not respond
to requests for comment on the ministry or its mandate. On Wednesday, the
Taliban’s Interior Ministry announced that protests were discouraged “for the
time being.”
While the Taliban was in power from
1996 until 2001, the ministry enforced a severe interpretation of Islamic law.
It was disbanded by then-Afghan
President Hamid Karzai after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and
replaced by the Ministry for Hajj and Religious Affairs. Karzai’s cabinet
approved a less powerful Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the
Discouragement of Vice in 2006 amid pressure from conservatives.
Religious policing predated Taliban
rule. The government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, who served as president between
1992 and 1996, created the vice and virtue ministry. But under the Taliban
their role expanded. Human Rights Watch later called the institution a “notorious symbol of
arbitrary abuses.”
For ordinary people, the ministry
was the face of the regime, said Robert Crews, a historian of Afghanistan at
Stanford University. “It is the institution that most Afghans were likely to
encounter, and it is one that the leadership prioritized above all others.”
Accounts from the time detail
forces patrolling the streets, shutting down shops and markets at prayer time.
They beat people caught listening
to music and frowned upon dancing, kite-flying and American-style
haircuts.
Squads of the ministry’s morality
police punished those who disobeyed modesty codes, with beards too
thin or ankles that showed. They banished girls from school and women from the
workplace and the public eye. A woman could not venture outside without a male
guardian.
[Taliban
says it will be more tolerant toward women. Some fear otherwise.]
With these memories in mind, many
Afghans remain skeptical of promises from the Islamist fighters that they have
changed.
Two Taliban members, who spoke on
the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the
media, said the minister appointed to run the restored government body, Khalid,
was a cleric well-versed in religious law.
“The ministry will have their own
specific officials, but not police or soldiers,” one of the two told The
Washington Post from Kabul.
“The ministry has not started
working yet. Its duty will be to preach virtues and teachings of Islam, and
prevent people from vice [and] unlawful acts,” he said. “It is an important
ministry.”
The second member said he did not
expect the Taliban to use force to apply its guidelines in the same way it had
before.
While several residents of the
Afghan capital said they had not encountered the militants enforcing strict
regulations, they said people had changed their behavior in anticipation.
[How
life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan has changed — and how it hasn’t]
A woman who works for a private
company said she had just gone back to work after spending nearly two weeks
hiding at home.
“For the last three days, no one
stopped me,” she said. “I am still moving in the streets, filled with
nervousness that they might ask me at any time.”
The Taliban has put out mixed
messages on whether women can return to work. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah
Mujahid has said that there would be “no discrimination against women,” but
added, “of course, within the frameworks we have.”
Crews said that if the ministry
tried to return to the past, it would probably face conflict in an Afghanistan
that had changed much over two decades.
“There’s no reason to expect
anything different this time from the Taliban, except that they seem to be
surprised by how different Afghan society has become,” Crews said, adding that
he “sees the puzzlement on the faces of Taliban fighters when in recent days
they’ve encountered female protesters who do not back down, even at gunpoint.”
This report has been updated.