On Thursday, the Taliban raised a huge flag of the Islamic Emirate on top of a hill overlooking the capital, Kabul, during a ceremony held regarding eight months following the extremist movement seized power in Afghanistan.
The ceremony was held on the hill of “Wazir Akbar Khan” in the north of the capital, and was attended by hundreds of members of the movement and its leaders, many of whom participated in their weapons, and was presided over by the Second Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Salam Hanafi, according to AFP correspondents.
The white flag is 26 meters long and 40 meters wide. The phrase “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God” was written on it in black and was raised on a huge roof.
The Taliban and its leaders did not hide their joy in the knowledge, as a number of them rushed to catch it or even touch it before it was raised.
“Today, a flag has been raised that is the flag of independence, peace and brotherhood, and a symbol of the provisions of the Islamic system,” said Abdel Salam Hanafi.
He added, “This is not the flag of the Taliban or the mullahs. It is the flag of the entire nation that made sacrifices. This flag belongs to the whole of Afghanistan.”
Until the takeover of Kabul by Islamic militants on August 15, 2021, the national flag, in its three colors of black, red, and green, was fluttered on the same mast over Wazir Akbar Khan’s hill where families go for a walk and enjoy the panoramic view of Kabul.
But the Taliban ordered all ministries and public buildings to replace the tricolor flag with the banner of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the name it gives to its regime.
Since seizing power in Kabul, the hard-line movement has promised a softer interpretation of Islamic law compared to the strict interpretation it applied when it ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and was marred by massive human rights abuses.
And if the new system, which no country has yet recognized, has been careful to date not to enact very strict rules, the movement is gradually imposing increasing restrictions, especially those related to women’s rights.
Thursday’s ceremony was held a week following the Taliban regime closed girls’ secondary schools, hours following they reopened following a prolonged closure.
The hardline Islamist movement excluded Afghan women from many public jobs and imposed restrictions on their dress. It also arrested women activists, some for several weeks, who had demonstrated for women’s rights.
In recent days, the Taliban also banned women from traveling without a mahram, and issued a decree banning men and women from visiting Kabul’s parks on the same days.
The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which replaced the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in the previous government, said that women can go to public parks on Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays, while men can go on other days.
“It is not an order from the Islamic Emirate, but it is an order from God that foreign men and women do not meet in the same place,” ministry official, Muhammad Yahya Aref, told AFP.
