(Kabul) Security forces fired into the air and used water cannons to disperse dozens of Afghan women protesting in Kabul on Wednesday against the Taliban authorities’ decision to close beauty salons, a further restriction on their freedom .
Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have excluded women from most secondary schools, universities and public administrations, prohibited them from entering parks, gardens, sports halls and public baths. , and oblige them to cover themselves fully when they leave their homes.
The decision to close beauty salons, announced in a decree published at the end of June, will cause the disappearance of thousands of businesses run by women, whose families often have no other sources of income, and one of the last spaces of freedom and socialization for Afghan women.
“Don’t take my bread and water from me,” read a sign held up by one of the protesters on Butcher Street, a street in the capital where many beauty salons are located.
Demonstrations are rare in Afghanistan and are usually violently dispersed. But around fifty women, according to AFP journalists, still took part in Wednesday’s meeting, which quickly attracted the attention of the security services.
Photos and videos shared by the protesters with the press show the police using fire hoses to disperse them, while gunfire echoes in the background.
“Today we organized this demonstration to discuss and negotiate,” said a salon employee, whose name AFP chose not to publish for security reasons.
But “no one came to talk to us, to listen to us,” she added. “They paid no attention to us and after a few moments they scattered us by shooting in the air and with water cannons. »
“denial of rights”
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan (Manua) condemned the way the demonstration had been dispersed.
“Reports of the forceful crackdown on a peaceful protest by women against the ban on beauty salons – the latest denial of women’s rights in Afghanistan – are deeply disturbing,” she tweeted.
“Afghans have the right to express their opinions without facing violence. The de facto authorities must uphold this right,” she added.
The Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue, by confirming the measure a few days after the promulgation of the decree, had specified that the salons had one month to close, in order to have time to sell their stock.
He had justified this closure by the fact that extravagant sums are spent in salons for weddings, considering it to be too heavy a burden for poor families, and by the fact that some of the treatments offered did not respect not Islamic law.
Having too much makeup on the face prevents women from properly performing ablution before prayers, the ministry explained, with false eyelashes and braids also prohibited.
A written copy of the decree seen by AFP said the decision was based “on a verbal instruction from the Supreme Leader” of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Beauty salons had proliferated in Kabul and major Afghan cities during the 20-year occupation by US and NATO forces before the Taliban returned to power.
They were considered safe places for women to meet in the absence of men, and had also enabled many women to set up their own businesses.