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21-07-2023
Bureau Report
KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Security officials shot into the air and used firehoses to disperse dozens of Afghan women protesting in Kabul on Wednesday against an order by Taliban authorities to shut down beauty parlors, the latest curb to squeeze them out of public life.
Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban government has barred girls and women from high schools and universities, banned them from parks, funfairs and gyms, and ordered them to cover up in public.
The order issued last month forces the closure of thousands of beauty parlors nationwide run by women often the only source of income for households and outlaws one of the few remaining opportunities for them to socialize away from home.
“Don’t take my bread and water,” read a sign carried by one of the protesters on Butcher Street, which boasts a concentration of the capital’s salons.
Public protests are rare in Afghanistan and frequently dispersed by force but AFP saw around 50 women taking part in Wednesday’s gathering, quickly attracting the attention of security personnel.
Protesters later shared videos and photos with journalists that showed authorities using a firehose to disperse them as shots could be heard in the background.
“Today we arranged this protest to talk and negotiate,” said a salon worker, whose name has not been published by 
AFP for security reasons “but today, no one came to talk to us, to listen to us. They didn’t pay any attention to us and after a while they dispersed us by aerial firing and water cannon.”
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemned the protest breakup.
“Reports of the forceful suppression of a peaceful protest by women against the ban on beauty salons, the latest denial of women’s rights in #Afghanistan are deeply concerning,” it said in a tweet.
“Afghans have the right to express views free from violence. De facto authorities must uphold this.”
In late June the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice gave salons a month to close down, saying the grace period would allow them to use up stock.
It said it made the order because extravagant sums spent on makeovers caused hardship for poor families, and that some treatments at the salons were un-Islamic.
