Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have started to enforce a new order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on air.
After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most female anchors were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry began enforcing the decree.
The Information and Culture Ministry previously announced that the policy was “final and non-negotiable”.
“It is just an outside culture imposed on us, forcing us to wear a mask, and that can create a problem for us while presenting our programmes”, said Sonia Niazi, a TV anchor with Afghanistan’s TOLOnews.
Niazi told Al Jazeera that, for the first time, she “wasn’t feeling good at all”, while presenting programmes.
“This decree is unpredictable for all female presenters because Islam has not commanded us to cover our faces”, Niazi said...
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