May 23, 2001 Posted: 10:30 PM HKT (1430 GMT)
CNN.com/WORLD
From staff and wire reports KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban have defended an edict requiring Hindus to wear yellow badges to distinguish them from Muslims. A senior Taleban information ministry official said the ruling seeks to protect Hindus from religious police enforcing Muslim rules, such as growing beards and offering prayers in the mosque. But the edict, which requires Hindus to wear a yellow badge on their chests and for Hindu women to wear a head-to-toe veil just like Afghan women, has sparked outrage outside of the country. The enforced dress code, which some have compared to the practice in Nazi Germany of forcing Jews to wear yellow stars, is being seen as the latest sign of an increasingly hard line being taken by the isolationist Taleban. The militia, which controls 95 percent of Afghan territory, have imposed a harsh brand of Islam, banning education for girls, beating men for trimming their beards and prohibiting all forms of light entertainment including television.
Most of the Islamic world, including pro-Taleban Pakistan, has differed with the Taleban’s narrow interpretation of Islam and say the militia is tarnishing Islam’s image. Hindus wary of edict While the Taleban have argued the latest move is being carried out in response to demands by Hindus for protection, journalist Kamal Hyder told CNN that Hindus he had spoken with said they “do not feel discriminated against.” “Most of these Hindus … told us that they do not see discrimination in their day-to-day life,” he said. “They were of course apprehensive about any edict regarding dress code.” Hindus said they had heard radio reports about the edict but had not received any information about the new rules, and were concerned about its impact. Balbir Singh, a Hindu shopkeeper in the Afghan capital of Kabul, said the mark could cause “security problems” for him when he travels to the countryside where people might not like Hindus. Afghan women are obliged to cover themselves in public and are barred from working “We don’t feel safe with this,” he said. Mohammed Wali, the head of the religious police in Afghanistan, said the edict only applied to Hindus because there are no Christians or Jews in Afghanistan and the country’s small Sikh population can be easily recognized by their turbans. However, a spokesperson for the U.N. coordinating office for Afghanistan, based in the Pakistani city of Islamabad, told CNN that even if non-Muslims welcome the opportunity to show they are not Muslim, any edict should be carried out with their consent. “The freedoms in Afghanistan already are so very limited to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. If this is indeed a mandatory edict then it represents yet another curtailing of basic human freedom,” the spokesperson said. ‘Un-Islamic’ crackdown The labeling edict is the latest in a series of moves the Taleban have taken to crack down on what they regard as “un-Islamic” segments of Afghan society. In March, the Taleban ordered all Buddhist statutes in the country destroyed, including two ancient stone statues of Buddha carved into a cliff above the central city Bamiyan. The move sparked condemnation from governments as well as archaeological and religious groups around the world. Earlier this week the Taleban closed four of six United Nations political offices in Afghanistan to protest international sanctions imposed because of the Taleban’s alleged sponsorship of terrorism. Last week armed members of the Taleban religious police closed down an Italian-funded hospital used for treating civil-war victims. Staff working at the hospital were reportedly beaten following accusations that they had violated Islamic law by allowing men and women to eat together. Global outcry The labeling measure has drawn sharp criticism from both the United States and India, both of whom have called it a human rights violation. Washington has condemned the move as “the latest in a long list of outrageous repressions.” “Forcing social groups to wear distinctive clothing or identifying marks stigmatizes and isolates those groups and can never, never be justified,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. The move also sparked anger in India home to the world’s largest population of Hindus. A foreign ministry spokesman said that the move was another example of the Taleban’s “obscurantist and racist” ideology. “We believe that such edicts have no place in civilized societies and have been rightly deplored by the international community,” Raminder Singh Jassal, told reporters in New Delhi. “International pressure must be brought to bear on the Taleban to rescind such discriminatory orders and allow all communities to live in dignity and respect,” he said. India does not recognize the Taleban government in Afghanistan, but maintains diplomatic relations with the Anti-Taleban Northern Alliance which controls only five percent of Afghanistan. Elsewhere in the country members of a right wing Hindu group the Bajrang Dal took to the streets of the Central-Indian city of Bhopal to protest against the Taleban edict, burning burnt effigies of the militia’s leader Mullah Omar. A leader of another right-wing group, the Shiv Sena, warned such edicts were issued so as to “oppress Hindus”. “Once Hindu homes, Hindu women are identified, it is easy to rob their houses and oppress their women.” Hindus in Afghanistan have not been the target of persecution and have generally been allowed to practice their religion freely. However, over decades of war, the number of Hindus has dwindled from a high of about 50,000 during the 1970s to 500 in the capital and small pockets elsewhere. The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.