The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice announced Tuesday that its morality police detained five men and two women in Kabul on charges of “moral corruption.”
According to the ministry’s statement, the arrests took place in the 22nd district of Kabul, and the individuals were subsequently handed over to “relevant authorities” for further investigation.
This latest crackdown follows previous Taliban arrests of women and girls in Kabul on charges of “improper hijab” in January.
Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, recently reported that Taliban authorities have not only suppressed detained women but, in verified cases, subjected them to “sexual assault and harassment.”
Bennett’s report includes evidence showing that women arrested for alleged “improper” hijab were verbally humiliated and, in some instances, physically abused in Taliban detention facilities.
Bennett described the conditions for women under Taliban rule as “gender apartheid,” calling the term a fitting description of the Taliban’s institutional and ideological practices toward women.
