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Afghan Women To Be Banned From Playing Sport

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Afghan Women To Be Banned From Playing Sport

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Peter Beaumont

Afghan women, including the country’s women’s cricket team, will be banned from playing sport under the new Taliban government, according to an official in the hardline Islamist group.

In an interview with the Australian broadcaster SBS, the deputy head of the Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said women’s sport was considered neither appropriate nor necessary.

“I don’t think women will be allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play cricket,” Wasiq said. “In cricket, they might face a situation where their face and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this.

“It is the media era, and there will be photos and videos, and then people watch it. Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.”

A new Taliban interim government drawn exclusively from loyalist ranks formally began work on Wednesday, with established hardliners in all key posts and no women – despite previous promises to form an inclusive administration.

The US state department expressed concern that the new cabinet included only Taliban, no women, and personalities with troubling track records, but said the new administration would be judged by its actions.

The carefully worded statement noted the cabinet was interim, but said the Taliban would be held to their promise to give safe passage to foreign nationals and Afghans, with proper travel documents, and ensure Afghan soil would not be used as a base to harm another state.

“The world is watching closely,” the statement said.

The EU also condemned the new government for its lack of inclusion, saying it failed to honour vows from the new rulers to include different groups.

“Upon initial analysis of the names announced, it does not look like the inclusive and representative formation in terms of the rich ethnic and religious diversity of Afghanistan we hoped to see and that the Taliban were promising over the past weeks,” an EU spokesperson said.

READ ALSO: Bandits May Overrun Nigeria Like Taliban In Afghanistan – Gumi

Germany, China and Japan also offered a lukewarm reception on Wednesday to the Taliban’s provisional government in Afghanistan, after the Islamist militants’ lightning seizure of Kabul last month.

The German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, added that the composition encouraged little optimism that the Taliban had changed. “The announcement of a transitional government without the participation of other groups and yesterday’s violence against demonstrators and journalists in Kabul are not signals that give cause for optimism,” he said.

The issue of women’s rights is likely to dominate how the regime is judged by the international community, with the stance on women’s sport and the all-male government being ominous warning signs.

While a policy statement released to accompany the announcement of the new cabinet sought to allay fears of Afghanistan’s neighbours and the rest of the world, women – unlike minorities – were not mentioned once in its three pages.

While officials at the Afghanistan cricket board say they have not been informed officially of the fate of women’s cricket, the board’s programme for girls has already been suspended.

Sportswomen, including cricketers, have been in hiding in Afghanistan since the Taliban swept to power amid a precipitate US-led withdrawal of foreign forces last month, with some women reporting threats of violence from Taliban fighters if they are caught playing.

The ban on playing sport comes amid mounting evidence that the Taliban’s attitude towards women has barely moderated since they were last in power, despite claims to the contrary.

As the Taliban have transitioned from militant force to governing power, they are facing opposition to their rule, with scattered protests – many with women at the forefront – breaking out in cities across the country.

A small rally in the capital, Kabul, on Wednesday was quickly dispersed by armed Taliban security, while Afghan media reported that a protest in the north-eastern city of Faizabad was also broken up. Hundreds protested on Tuesday, both in the capital and in the city of Herat, where two people were shot dead.

READ ALSO: Taliban Accused Of Murdering Pregnant Afghan Policewoman In Front Of Her Family

Notorious for their brutal and oppressive rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had promised a more inclusive government this time. However, all the top positions were handed to key leaders from the movement and the Haqqani network – the most violent faction of the Taliban, known for devastating attacks.

Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund – a senior minister during the Taliban’s reign in the 1990s – was appointed interim prime minister, the group’s chief spokesperson said at a press conference in Kabul.

‘They came for my daughter’: Afghan single mothers face losing children under Taliban Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of the Taliban founder and late supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was named defence minister, while the position of interior minister was given to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network.

The Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar, who oversaw the signing of the US withdrawal agreement in 2020, was appointed deputy prime minister.

“We will try to take people from other parts of the country,” the spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, said, adding that it was an interim government.

Hibatullah Akhundzada, the secretive supreme leader of the Taliban, released a statement saying the new government would “work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and sharia law”.

The Taliban had made repeated pledges in recent days to rule with greater moderation than they had in their last stint in power.

“The new Taliban is virtually the same as the old Taliban,” tweeted Bill Roggio, the managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal.

“It’s not at all inclusive, and that’s no surprise whatsoever,” said Michael Kugelman, a south Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The Guardian of London

 

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How Eight Died In India Temple Collapse

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Indian Prime Minister Modi

No fewer than eight devotees died and about a dozen rescued on Thursday after about 25 people fell into a well at a Hindu temple in India, police said.

The worshippers plunged into the stepwell – a stair-lined communal water source – after the floor covering it collapsed in the central city of Indore.

“We have recovered eight bodies and rescued nearly a dozen,” police official Manish Kapooriya told AFP, adding that rescue efforts were still ongoing.

Television footage showed emergency workers using ropes and ladders to reach those trapped in the well in Madhya Pradesh state.

Other videos showed the caved-in floor and mangled steel bars, and policemen using ropes to seal the area.

Temples across India were brimming with devotees on the occasion of Ram Navami, the birthday of the Hindu deity Lord Ram.

AFP

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Police Fine British Prime Minister For Not Wearing Seatbelt In Car

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Police Fine British Prime Minister For Not Wearing Seat Belt In Car

The British Police have fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for not wearing a seatbelt in the back of a moving car while on a trip to northern England.

Sunak, who recorded an Instagram video on Thursday, was seen turning in his seat to talk to the camera without a seatbelt on, a video that has now been deleted from the social media site.

The PM’s office at Downing Street said the incident was a “brief error of judgment”, but Lancashire constabulary announced they were fining Sunak for the infraction, The Guardian UK says.

The force said: “You will be aware that a video has been circulating on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seatbelt while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire.

“After looking into this matter, we have today issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty.”

Reacting, a spokesperson for Sunak said: “The prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologised. He will of course comply with the fixed penalty.”

A fixed penalty means Sunak can pay a fine to avoid a court hearing.

The police did not disclose how much they had fined the prime minister, but according to the government’s safety campaign, any driver or passenger not wearing a seatbelt is breaking the law and is liable to be fined up to £500 if the case goes to court, according to The Guardian UK.

Sunak’s transportation habits were already a talking point in the United Kingdom before the incident, a report by AFP says.

 READ  ALSO: Rishi Sunak Becomes UK’s New Prime Minister

His political rivals have taken aim at his use of a private jet to make multiple short flights in recent days.

This is not the first time Sunak has been slapped with a police fine.

He was fined while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer for attending a Downing Street party in June 2020 that violated the government’s rules on social distancing, according to an AFP report.

The latest fine makes Sunak the second Conservative prime minister to receive a police fine in less than 12 months. The Metropolitan police, in 2020, issued a fixed-penalty notice to Boris Johnson for attending a party during lockdown. Sunak was fined for attending the same event as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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World’s Oldest Nun Dies At 118

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World's Oldest Nun Does At 118

French nun Sister André who was the world’s oldest known person died at age 118 in the southern French city of Toulon, the city’s mayor Hubert Falco said on Wednesday.

Born in the southern French town of Ales on Feb. 11, 1904, as Lucile Randon, Sister André was listed as the oldest person alive by the Gerontology Research Group in April 2022.

The Frenchwoman worked as a home teacher in her youth and did not enter a religious community until she was in her early 40s.
Most recently, Sister André was confined to a wheelchair, and for several years she could no longer see properly.

READ ALSO: Eight Shot At Crowded Martin Luther King Day Block Party

She was an honorary citizen of Toulon, where she lived in a retirement home for several years.
Falco praised her as incredibly modern and a nun with a big heart.

Guinness World Records said Lucile, who took the name of Sister André in 1944, was the second-oldest French person and the second-oldest European person ever recorded.
More recently, Sister André received the record for the oldest COVID-19 survivor after an infection in 2021.

“It’s difficult to fathom that someone born before the patenting of plastic, zips or even bras were alive well into the 21st century, and robust enough to beat COVID-19’’, the Guinness World Records editor, Craig Glenday said in a statement.

“It’s been an honour to record her story in the pages of the Guinness World Records book, and she will live on in history as the fourth oldest person ever authenticated.’’

With her death, Maria Branyas Morera, who lived in Spain, assumed the title of the world’s oldest person at age 115.

 

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