The Taliban’s harsh new ‘vice and virtue’ laws are a throwback to the oppression of the 1990s – especially for the women of Afghanistan

By Kambaiz Rafi, Teaching Fellow in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University

Until the collapse of Afghanistan’s US-backed government in August 2021, few knew clearly what the Taliban wanted once they had returned to power. Some western officials and observers hoped for a big change from the regime, which had governed the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate in the 1990s.

This time, they hoped, a more sophisticated and pragmatic vision might have replaced the Taliban’s previously extremist…

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