Taliban bars Afghan women from hearing each other's voices in new edict

The Taliban have banned Afghan women from allowing their voices to be heard by other women, adding yet another restriction to their string of radical measures against women.

Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, said in an audio statement last week that women should refrain from reciting the Quran — the holy book of Islam — aloud in the presence of other women, according to Amu TV, a U.S.-based network established by Afghan journalists in exile after the fall of Afghanistan’s Western-backed government.

“If a woman is not permitted to perform Takbir, then how could she be allowed to sing?,” the minister was quoted as saying, referring to an Islamic expression mainly used by Muslims around the world, which means “God is greater.”