Jan 6 (AFP) – The Taliban have ordered shop owners in western Afghanistan to cut off the heads of mannequins, insisting the human figures violate Islamic law.
A video clip showing men sawing the plastic heads off women figures went viral on social media.
“We have ordered the shopkeepers to cut the heads off mannequins as this is against (Islamic) Sharia law,” Aziz Rahman, head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the city of Herat, said on Wednesday.
“If they just cover the head or hide the entire mannequin, the angel of Allah will not enter their shop or house and bless them,” he added, after some clothes vendors initially responded by covering the heads of mannequins with plastic bags or headscarves.
The Taliban have so far issued no national policy on mannequins or statues.
Under the former militants’ strict interpretation of Islamic law, depictions of the human figure are forbidden.
During their first regime in the 1990s, the Taliban triggered global outrage after blowing up two ancient Buddha statues.
