Afghan women are raising their voices in song to protest restrictive laws enacted by the Taliban, which ban women from singing and reading aloud in public.
The laws were issued last week by the ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice,” which was established in 2021 after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. The 114-page document covers vast aspects of everyday public life, with many notable restrictions on women’s freedoms.
It is now mandatory for women to veil their entire bodies, including their faces, at all times in public to avoid temptation and tempting others. This means that the common Islamic head-covering, the hijab, which covers the hair and neck but not the face, is no longer considered appropriate.
Women are also forbidden from singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, as a woman’s voice is deemed “intimate” and should not be heard. It’s unclear if speaking is also banned.
After the laws were passed, Afghan women both inside and outside the country began posting videos of themselves singing in defiance of the new laws. Some of the videos have gone viral on social media, prompting a wave of others to join the peaceful protest. The lyrics they sing often touch on themes of freedom.
Human Rights Watch researcher Fereshta Abbasi noticed one song in particular being repeated in many protest videos:
Here we are, the women, the world,
Singing freedom like a bird
Rise up, my people,
Rise up, my friend.
Their boots might be on my neck.
Or their fists to my face.
But with our deep light inside
I will fight through this night.
Habib Khan, the founder of Afghan Peace Watch and a former Wall Street Journal reporter, shared multiple videos of Afghan women singing in protest of the laws.
One video shows a woman completely veiled in black singing that a “stamp of silence” has been placed on her mouth and that she has been “imprisoned” in her house for “the crime of being a woman.”
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The new laws enacted by the Taliban also forbid women from travelling without a male companion.
Another woman posted a video of herself singing outdoors in Afghanistan, in direct defiance of the Taliban’s morality laws. The 23-year-old graduate told the Associated Press that she refused to be silenced.
“No command, system or man can close the mouth of an Afghan woman,” said the woman, who only provided her last name, Efat.
Efat’s face is barely visible in the 39-second video, which was recorded by her older sister and posted to social media on Tuesday. She wears a dark top, a light blue scarf and sunglasses.
“Because we are in Afghanistan, and the region has less freedom and more fear, if a sound is heard, it will be shut down,” Efat said. “While I was singing, I had the same fear. That if someone heard it, it would be the last time I sang.”
She chose the song because of its message of defiance, protest and strength: “I am not that weak willow that trembles in every wind/I am from Afghanistan/I remember that day when I opened the cage/I took my head out of the cage and sang drunkenly.”
At the end of the video, she says: “A woman’s voice is not intimate.” It’s a direct reference to the Taliban laws and what they say are the reason for a woman’s voice to be concealed outside the home.
“We will remain stronger than before,” she said.
Breaking the Taliban’s morality laws could result in warnings, confiscations of property or detention of up to three days. The ministry has already been enforcing similar morality requirements and says it has detained thousands of people for violations.
“A lot of these rules were in place already but less formally and now they are being formalized. I think this is a sign of what we’ve been seeing over the last three years which is a steady and gradual escalation of the crackdown,” said Heather Barr, associate director of Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights division.
Apart from the new restrictions on women, the laws passed on Wednesday also ban the playing of music and bar men from shaving their beards as well as skipping prayer and religious fasts. As well, women cannot look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
The new laws come after the Taliban already placed harsh restrictions on women’s freedoms after the takeover. In 2022, the group banned women from attending school after the sixth grade, when previously, women could attend high schools and universities. Women are also banned from working at non-governmental organizations.
— With files from The Associated Press
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