Taliban Bans Women from National Park

Afghanistan’s Taliban minister for vice and virtue is banning women from visiting a national park because he says they have not been wearing their headscarves or hijab correctly when visiting the site.


The announcement comes after Minister Mohammad Khalid Hanafi’s recent visit to Band-e-Amir, a popular park in the central Bamiyan Province.


"Going sightseeing is not a must for women," Hanifi told officials and religious clerics after his trip to the park, according to the Associated Press. The minister also said security forces would be used to keep the women out of the park.


CNN described Band-e-Amir as "a peaceful oasis with deep blue lakes surrounded by mountains."


"Step by step, the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison," Heather Barr, Human Rights Watch’s associate women’s rights director, said in a statement. "Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature, as we see from this latest ban on women visiting Band-e-Amir."


Other restrictions imposed on Afghanistan’s females by the Taliban include barring girls from school after the sixth grade and banning women from jobs with local and international non-government organizations.


Some information in this report came from the Associated Press