Province by province, the Taliban government’s leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, has tightened his grip over Afghanistan. With a recent show of force in the western city of Herat, he has asserted control over one of the last havens where people could still quietly ignore some of the Taliban’s restrictions.
Sheikh Akhundzada’s morality police have arrested dozens of women over the last few weeks for clothing deemed inappropriate, and men for beards they judged too short, as part of a campaign of policing dress codes, religious practices and other rules about daily life. The orders have been more strictly enforced in cities like Herat or Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, where the Taliban has less support than in the conservative south.
When I visited Herat in June, many women said they now avoided leaving their homes out of fear of being caught in the wave of arrests. Some people had even protested, a rare act of public resistance, but the Taliban cracked down on them, too.
“They are spreading fear like a virus,” said Hengameh, a Herat resident in her 30s.
She and most of the two dozen other residents, religious leaders, human rights defenders and teachers interviewed in Herat asked to be identified only by their first names, or to remain anonymous because of fear of retaliation by the Taliban.
They described an intense new climate of fear and intimidation that has now settled over vast parts of one of Afghanistan’s most cosmopolitan cities. Women and girls in Herat face the same restrictions on access to school, most jobs, and travel as those elsewhere in the country, but until recently, they had enjoyed slightly greater freedom of movement than in other parts of Afghanistan, and looser rules about what they wore.
The Taliban government has already silenced most dissenting voices. But critics say that it may be squeezing Afghanistan’s diverse society to the point of upheaval.
“Why are they intensifying religious pressure every day?” Ayatollah Gholam Abbas Waezi Zadeh, a leading Shiite cleric, said in a speech in May. “When the pressure becomes too high, an explosion will inevitably occur.”
Herat’s quiet resistance
Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city and home to a large Shiite Muslim population, has never been a stronghold for the Taliban, who are Sunni Muslims. During the civil war that led to the Taliban’s first rule in the 1990s, Herat was the home base for some of the group’s fiercest rivals. And it was among the last cities to fall to the group in August 2021.
On my last trips to the city, last summer and in March, I saw schoolgirls wearing loose head scarves that let a sliver of hair show, and many women wearing jeans or colorful shawls.
One neighborhood, Jebrail, has long embodied Herat’s quiet resistance. It is home to tens of thousands of families from the Shiite Hazara community and a hub for cross-border trade with Iran, 70 miles to the west.
There are cafes in Jebrail where young men and women could meet freely, and markets where groups of female friends wandered unbothered in makeup and heels.
Directives issued by the Taliban’s morality police to local religious leaders in early June meant an end to that. The police said women who did not respect orders to cover themselves from head to toe, including their faces, would be arrested and could face prison.
On June 6 and 7, at least 30 women were arrested on charges of violating the orders, according to the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan. Local human rights groups say they have registered more than 200 arrests so far and expect more.
“Some generations accept orders, others don’t,” Hussain, a Shiite cleric in Herat, said about the new crackdown on women’s clothing. “The new generation isn’t coping; it is not accepting.”
On June 9, dozens of residents gathered in Jebrail to protest the tightened rules and the arrests.
Among them was Hamayoon, 19, who said she had come with a friend even though their mothers had urged them not to.
“I told myself, ‘If I don’t go, and others don’t go, then who will participate?’” Hamayoon said. “Tomorrow might be my mother and sister’s turn to be arrested.”
Hamayoon and other demonstrators chanted, “Work, education, freedom.” As the chants grew louder, and armed Taliban officers walked toward the demonstrators, some threw stones at the Taliban, who fired warning shots and then aimed for their feet, according to five protesters. Footage of the tense face-off quickly circulated on social media, according to videos verified by The New York Times.
The police officers chased demonstrators down Jebrail’s alleys, beating and arresting dozens of them, according to protesters and five others who witnessed the clashes. One teenager died after suffering gunshot wounds, and several others were injured.
A spokesman for the Herat police, Sayed Masoud Hussaini, said the protesters had been “agitators” seeking to disrupt public order. He denied that the police had arrested or beaten protesters, and he said the police had brought the area back under control “in the shortest possible time.”
The protest in Jebrail started at 8 a.m. By 10 a.m., the Taliban had dispersed everyone.
A show of strength
The Taliban swarmed Jebrail and installed checkpoints. As rumors spread of another planned demonstration, they issued warnings in mosques and schools to the neighborhood’s residents: Do not go out to protest again.
They have not.
Instead, a climate of fear has fallen on Jebrail. Residents said the Taliban are stopping people and arresting them because of their beards or clothing and, in some cases, intimidating schoolgirls.
Zahra, 15, said she had to line up at her school with hundreds of her classmates in a courtyard one morning last month, under the close watch of officers from the Taliban’s morality police.
The students were already fully covered in black chadors from head to toe, but the officer ordered them to cover their faces as well, in line with the new instructions, Zahra said. The officers then filmed as the girls held pieces of paper describing their outfits as “the flag of the Afghan woman’s honor.”
Some of the girls cried under their veils. “We were all frightened,” she said, because they were unable to reach their parents for help.
On a recent evening, I saw a dozen armed officers who stopped drivers at every major intersection.
Fully covered women walked as the sunset brought respite from the 105-degree heat. A local market was almost empty.
The crackdown and fear of arrests have brought economic activity to a standstill. Shakila, the owner of a food packaging workshop in Jebrail, said three of her employees had not come to work for weeks.
A principal in Herat said that some parents had stopped their daughters from attending school.
Some who do face ridicule from adults who don’t agree with the Taliban rules. At Zahra’s school, students who comply and attend class with a mask or a veil covering their faces have faced insults from people calling them “Taliban donkeys,” according to a teacher there.
Pressuring Shiites
The Taliban’s effort to assert control goes beyond social norms around dress. Taliban officials have increasingly targeted members of the Shiite community across the country in recent months, according to religious officials, education professionals and human rights groups.
They have instructed all male university students to sign a document certifying that they follow the Taliban’s Sunni school of thought. In Herat, they have ordered some principals to provide lists of their Shiite students.
And as Afghan Shiites in Herat prepared for the holy commemoration of Ashura last month, their leaders received orders from the Taliban to remove flags from shrines and to cancel outdoor processions.
They relented when Shiite officials objected. Worshipers were allowed to celebrate, but with limitations.
Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s spokesman, said in an interview that the authorities had imposed restrictions on the celebrations because of security threats to Shiite communities from the Islamic State. The Taliban government has, over the years, said it has mostly eliminated the Islamic State threat from Afghanistan.
Between 10 and 15 percent of Afghanistan’s 45 million people are estimated to be Shiite, but they, like other minorities, have been largely shut out of power in the Taliban government.
“They do not accept recommendations, they do not accept guidance,” Ayatollah Waezi Zadeh, the Shiite cleric, said about the Taliban government in his speech in May. “Perhaps their foundation is to make every decision themselves, to be single-minded.”
Anisa Shabir contributed research.
