Taliban sacks 84 civil servants for cutting beards
By Alex Spillius in Pul-i-Khumri
THE fundamentalist Taliban militia has sacked 84 civil servants in Kabul for trimming their beards in a campaign against disobedience of its strict interpretation of Shariat, or Islamic law.
Radio Shariat said yesterday that they were dismissed for having "unnatural levels of facial hair", and that 55 residents had been punished for transgressions, including 31 women who went out without veils.
As Friday's six-month anniversary of Taliban rule in Kabul approaches, the movement's grip has become even more severe, despite international condemnation and the lack of recognition of its government.
Hundreds of families have fled north to escape the misery of life under the Taliban. Most have arrived in a refugee camp in Pul-i-Khumri, in one of the 10 provinces yet to fall to the Islamists. Families there have told of abuses against civilians for flouting the rules.
When Akhzar, a lorry driver, heard that the Taliban had press-ganged young men for service on the frontline, he decided it was time to safeguard his 15-year-old-son and take his wife and eight children out of the capital.
They have spent a month in a tiny single room with a plastic sheet roof, one of 600 families in the camp. They are likely to be there for many years.
"We have nothing here, no work, no money, but we have our freedom," said Malika, Akhzar's 23-year-old daughter. "In Kabul I was educated to the age of 17, but that is not possible with the Taliban. I will not return to Kabul until there is a normal government."
The burqa she was forced to wear in the capital is now at the bottom of cupboard. "I hated it, it was not human," she said.
One man reported seeing a woman being whipped for resting a bare forearm on an open car window. Other women were told not to wear white shoes as they were an insult to the "pure" Islamic white flag of the Taliban.
Untrimmed beards are viewed as a symbol of piety, in honour of the prophet, Mohammed, who grew his beard to full length. Maulawi Rafiullah Muazin, the president of the Department for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, effectively the religious police, said: "The beards must be long enough to come out of a clenched fist held at the base of the chin, according to Islamic practice. It does not matter who the person is, if he has trimmed his beard, we will dismiss him."
One ministry official claimed the sackings were an excuse to cut staff numbers to save money.
If beards must be long, hair must be short. The refugees in Pul-i-Khumri said that last month they had seen grinning, scissor-yielding Taliban guards halt men in the street and cut their hair. The women's punishment was to be lined up last month in the main street and whipped with electric cable.
"Apparently they were wearing veils, but the wrong sort, which showed their eyes," said an aid worker.
The Taliban insist women cover themselves from head to toe in the shuttlecock burqa with its lace gauze over the eyes.
A Taliban leader recently told the BBC World Service that the women had been "repeatedly warned" over dress codes.
After the Taliban captured Kabul in September, bans were imposed on female education and employment, and all games and recreation. The new regulations have been introduced on the instruction of the movement's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
