{"id":8015,"date":"2006-07-24T13:00:35","date_gmt":"2006-07-24T17:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8015.html"},"modified":"2006-07-24T13:00:35","modified_gmt":"2006-07-24T17:00:35","slug":"the-department-for-the-prevention-of-vice-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-department-for-the-prevention-of-vice-redux\/","title":{"rendered":"The Department for the Prevention of Vice — redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

In [tag]Afghanistan[\/tag], freedom is also on the march — including the freedom to be harassed by a government agency that the Taliban used<\/a> a little too effectively.<\/p>\n

Under the [tag]Taliban[\/tag], officials from the [tag]Department for the Prevention of Vice[\/tag] and [tag]Promotion of Virtue[\/tag] struck fear into women’s hearts, beating those who let a glimpse of wrist or ankle peek out from beneath their burqas. The hated religious police were disbanded when the hard-line Islamic regime fell in 2001. But President Hamid Karzai is planning to resurrect them, much to the alarm of human rights groups, parliamentarians and Western diplomats.<\/p>\n

During the Taliban’s reign, the religious police would beat women who were seen on the street without a male relative — an impossible demand to meet for the millions of women widowed by the civil war — and would thrash men who did not pray five times a day or keep their beard at the proper length. Afghan officials have said the new department — which was approved by the cabinet last month and is pending approval by parliament — would be a kinder, softer version of its Taliban predecessor and would not enforce such harsh penalties for moral transgressions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, we’re talking about Taliban-lite? Is this the Middle Eastern progress the White House is so anxious to boast about?<\/p>\n

It’s not at all encouraging. Shukria Barakzai, a Member of Parliament and analyst, said the new department is a “symbol of the past” and worries that even if it is staffed by competent people, it would be difficult to monitor in coming years. “The president could appoint people who are good today, but what about tomorrow?” she said. “It could be the same as the Taliban, and allow people to deliver violence against women, against freedom of speech.”<\/p>\n

The fact that Afghanistan didn’t even bother to change the name<\/a> of the morality-enforcing agency from the Taliban days is not a good sign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In [tag]Afghanistan[\/tag], freedom is also on the march — including the freedom to be harassed by a government agency that the Taliban used a little too effectively. Under the [tag]Taliban[\/tag], officials from the [tag]Department for the Prevention of Vice[\/tag] and [tag]Promotion of Virtue[\/tag] struck fear into women’s hearts, beating those who let a glimpse of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8015\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}