The Taliban have banned Afghan women from public parks and amusement parks in the capital just months after they ordered access to be segregated by gender. The new rule, introduced this week, further excludes women from a shrinking public space where they are already banned from traveling unaccompanied by a male and forced to wear a hijab or burqa if they don't are at home.
Schools for teenage girls have also been closed in most parts of the country for more than a year. We have done our best to organize and solve it, even fixing the days," said Mohammad Akif Sadeq Mohajir, spokesman for the Ministry of Preventing Vice and Promoting Virtue. "Nevertheless in some places we actually have to say that in many places the rules have been broken," he told AFP on Wednesday night.
"There was an intermingling (of men and women), hijab was not observed, so the decision is made for now." The news was met with dismay by the women and park operators, who invested heavily in the development of the facility.
There are no schools, there are no jobs ... at least we should have a place to play," said a mother who asked to be identified only as Wahida when she saw her children playing through a restaurant window in the park .neighboring. "We are bored and tired of being at home all day, our minds are tired.
At the next table, Raihana, 21, who studies Islamic law at university, shared her disappointment after arriving at the park to spend the day with her sisters. "We were so excited ... we're sick of staying at home," she said. “Obviously in Islam it is permissible to go out and visit parks. If you don't have freedom in your own country, what does it mean to live here?
Inactive AttractionsA few kilometers away, the Ferris wheel and most other attractions at Zazai Park, which offers a spectacular view of the city, suddenly stopped due to lack of activity. Before this week's ban, it could hold hundreds of visitors on days when women brought their children to family gatherings. On Fridays and holidays, even more flocked to the park, one of the city's few attractions. On Wednesday, only a handful of the men casually wandered the grounds.
Habib Jan Zazai, co-developer of the complex, fears closing a company in which he invested $11 million and which employs more than 250 people. "Without women, the children will not come alone," he told the AFP news agency. He warned that such edicts would discourage investment by expatriates or Afghans living abroad and hamper revenue collection.
Mohammad Tamim, 20, sipping tea in the park while visiting from Kandahar, where he teaches at a medrese, called the ban "bad news". One needs to entertain, especially after 20 years of war.
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