Taliban issues fresh fatwah against Hindus

[Guest guest]

<h2>Taliban issues fresh fatwah against Hindus</h2>

Agencies

(New Delhi, May 20)

 

IN YET another hardline action, the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan has issued a decree

asking the Hindus in the country to identify themselves by wearing yellow cloth and

follow Shariat or face prosecution.

 

As per the latest decree, Hindus will be required also to tie their houses with a piece

yellow cloth measuring two metres and Hindus and Muslims cannot live in the same

house, according to Star News.

 

The decree has barred the Hindus from constructing new places of worship. The

places of worship once destroyed cannot be built again, it says.

 

Hindus and Sikhs constitute a tiny part of Afghanistan's religious minority and many

of their establishments have been pulled down in the past. Some Hindus and Sikhs

have fled the Afghanistan.

 

The move is reminiscient of Germany under the Nazis when Jews were forced to

identify themselves in a similar manner.

[Jahnava Nitai Das]

Usually these steps at identifying an ethnic minority are for the purpose of making later persecution easy. Lets hope it doesn't degrade to that.

 

 

[Maitreya]

Some thing will happen on the world stage to incite these fanatics into attacking all these homes and people wearing yellow ribbons.

 

Maybe it would have been better to let the Soviets take the place,under the lesser of two evils argument.But who could tell it would come to this.

 

Jihad Against Fanaticism[JAF]

[Guest guest]

<h2>Taliban denies reports</h2>

 

ISLAMABAD, MAY 21. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban today denied news reports that the militia has imposed restrictions on the religious and cultural practices of Hindus settled there. The Taliban embassy spokesman, Mr. Mohammad Shaheen, expressed surprise over the reports in a section of the Indian media.

 

Neither official reports nor news reports emanating from Kabul had made any mention of such a decree, he said.

[Guest guest]

<h3>Discrimination in line with Islam: Taliban</h3>

AP

(Kabul, May 22)

 

AFGHANISTAN'S TALIBAN Religious Police Minister Mohammad Wali on Tuesday

said that the militia decision that Hindus in the country wear an identity label to

distinguish themselves from Muslims was in line with Islam.

 

"Non-Muslims should have a distinctive mark in their dress so that they can be

identified. We have asked for a fatwa (religious decree) from Ulema (Islamic scholars)

for full implementation of this," he said. "When a fatwa comes, a complete law will be

made."

 

He said the exact date for enforcing the law, which would also make it mandatory for

Hindu women to veil themselves just like their Muslim counterpart, was not set. India

has strongly reacted to the move terming it as discriminatory against the minorities.

 

The decision could further isolate the orthodox Islamic militia, already under fire from

the West for alleged discriminatory policies toward ethnic and religious minorities,

human rights abuses and poor treatment of women.

 

The Taliban have not yet decided what sort of an identity label Hindus will have to

wear.

 

There are at least 5,000h Hindus living in Kabul. Thousands of other Hindus live in

other Afghan cities, but there are no reliable figures on exactly how many.

 

The new law will be meant for only Hindus because there are no Christians or Jews

in Afghanistan and Sikhs can be easily recognised by their turbans, Wali said.

However, at least one Jew is known to live in the Afghan capital of Kabul and there

may also be some Christians.

 

It was unclear whether foreigners living in Afghanistan would be required to wear the

identity label. Anar, an Afghan Hindu in Kabul who uses just one name, said he does

not want to wear a label identifying him as Hindu.

 

"It will make us vulnerable and degrade our position in the society," he said.

 

Not only Hindus, Taliban authorities, who claim to control 90 percent of Afghanistan,

have been abusing the aid workers who provide most of the social services in the

devastated country.

 

Recently, a new 120-bed hospital in the capital Kabul built to treat victims of the 21

years of war was closed when armed members of the religious police forced their

way in, beat staff and took away three local employees.

 

The powerful Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said the

Italian-funded hospital had allowed men and women to eat in the same room.

 

MULLAH OMAR

 

Wali's ministry answers directly to Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar,

who earlier this year outraged much of the world by ordering the destruction of all

Afghanistan's historic statues -- mainly Buddhist.

 

Long-running Taliban objections to women working at bakeries funded by the UN

World Food Programme boiled up again last week, forcing the temporary closing of

some of the outlets that provide subsidised bread for much of the capital's

population.

 

Hopes for an early end to the war between the Taliban and their last opponents,

already just about dead, were dealt another blow with the closing this week of all but

one of the Taliban-area offices of the UN representative in charge of starting peace

talks, Francesc Vendrell.

 

The Taliban, angry that the UN Security Council imposed fresh sanctions against the

regime in January, reject any UN role in making peace. Japan, which has offered

without results to host peace talks, was told the Taliban would not accept even a UN

observer.

 

The deepening isolation has appeared to touch even Pakistan's military rulers, who

have backed the Taliban since it appeared seven years ago but failed this year to

persuade the movement to adopt policies that would make them more acceptable to

the world.

 

"The Afghans are nowhere near as pliant as they expected," said a senior Western

diplomat.

 

A hardening of the Taliban was not unexpected as it resumes its annual summer

battles with the Northern Alliance. This month they had rejected a UN call for a

cease-fire to get humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of Afghans displaced

by fighting and the worst drought in three decades.

 

However, while news from inside the opaque Taliban leadership is sparse, there has

also been speculation about problems. An expected early appointment of a new

deputy to Omar to replace Mohammad Rabbani who died in April has failed to

materialise.

 

"There is a lot of uprising talk around, more than in the past two or three years," said

a western diplomat. "There is a perception that the Taliban are off-balance, that there

is a structural problem, that there is something wrong with them."

 

The Taliban are believed to be short of money -- vital even in the relatively crude

warfare of Afghanistan, where commanders and their followers are routinely paid to

change sides.

 

The drug trade, which was taxed, has been hard hit by the Taliban's own ban on

opium poppy cultivation. And merchandise trade through Afghanistan, also taxed,

has been hit by Pakistan's efforts to slow the rampant smuggling across its border.

 

But no one in the large community of diplomats and aid workers dealing with

Afghanistan expects Taliban weakness to translate into victory for their opponents.

The prediction is just for more fighting.

 

Vendrell, the UN envoy who saw almost all his offices closed this week by the

Taliban, said he was resigned to focusing on talks with neighbouring countries until

prospects for peace improve.

 

[Maitreya]

How would you like to be that one lone Jew living in Kabul knowing that these fanatics had done a head count and know where you live.

 

Its fanaticide.