The Taliban announced Saturday that all women in Afghanistan will be required to cover their faces in public, a mandate that contradicts past promises that leadership has changed since its past draconian rule. Male relatives of women who break the rule will be subject to potential prison sentences or could be fired from their jobs, Reuters reports. The decree recommends women cloak themselves in the body-length blue burqa that was mandatory for women when the Taliban was in power from 1996 to 2001. In a news conference, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, said, “We call on the world to co-operate with the Islamic Emirate and people of Afghanistan ... Don’t bother us. Don’t bring more pressure, because history is witness, Afghans won’t be affected by pressure.”
