Return of Taliban's vice squad
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s reinstatement of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — which was abolished following the US occupation — sent a collective shudder through many Afghans, who remembered it for its strict interpretation of Islamic law.
“The main purpose is to serve Islam. Therefore, it is compulsory to have Ministry of Vice and Virtue,” Mohammad Yousuf, who says he is around 32 years old and responsible for the “central zone” of Afghanistan, tells me from inside his Kabul office on Monday. “We will punish as per the Islamic rules. Whatever Islam guides us, we will punish accordingly.”
Actions will be taken on the “major sins of Islam,” such as sexual intercourse outside marriage, killing someone and theft, he said.
“Islam has its rules for major sins. For example, killing someone has different rules. If you do it intentionally, if you know the person and intentionally kill the person, you will be killed back. If not intentional, then there might be another punishment like paying a certain amount of money,” Yousuf continues. “If there is a theft, the hand will be cut off. If there is illegal intercourse, they will be stoned.”
Yousuf says four witnesses are required, and those witnesses “should all have the same story.”
“If there is a small difference in the story, there will be no punishment,” he says. “But if all of them are saying the same thing . . . there will be punishment.”
Throughout the Taliban’s last reign from 1996 to 2001, the ministry enforced stringent restrictions on women, forcing them to wear the burqa and never leave their home without a male relative, and banning them from education beyond the sixth grade.