Taliban bans women from visiting Afghanistan’s National Park

Kabul: Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has banned women from visiting the country’s well-known national park for not wearing hijab ‘properly’.

The acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi called upon security outfits and religious leaders not to allow women to the park, BBC reported.

‘Going sightseeing is not a must for women,’ Hanafi was quoted as saying, adding that women are not properly observing the hijab norms.

Sayed Nasrullah Waezi, who is the head of the Bamiyan Shia Ulema Council, reportedly said that there were complaints about lack of hijab or bad hijab, adding ‘these are not Bamiyan residents. They come here from other places.’

Band-e-Amir National Park, a popular tourist spot set up in 2009, is the country’s first national park.

UNESCO termed the park as one with ‘naturally created groups of lakes with special geological formations and structure, as well as natural and unique beauty.’

Human right advocates are all the more upset about the Taliban regime’s latest diktat against women.

The ban to the park comes on the heels of more invasive restrictions including denying education and employment to the women in the country.

Heather Barr, the associate women's rights director at Human Rights Watch, reportedly said ‘step by step walls are closing in on the women as every home becomes a prison’.

‘'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,’ said Heather Barr added.

Nevertheless coming to power promising a softer rule this time, Taliban ignores is putting more restrictions on women ignoring all international outrage.

Earlier the regime banned women and families from entering restaurants with gardens in Herat province, reported Fox News.