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Taliban forces are administering electric shocks to women over breaches of a hijab mandate so strict it even requires them to cover their faces in public, reporting by Rukhshana Media has found.
Victims and eyewitnesses described women being knocked unconscious by electric shocks as they resisted efforts by Afghanistan’s notorious morality police to take them into custody over their dress. Others reported that the devices were being widely used in women’s prisons.
The rights group Amnesty International has called for a global ban on devices that deliver a shock on direct contact, calling them “inherently abusive” and saying they can cause serious injury and even death. International policing standards state that electric shocks should only be used as a last resort and in self-defence.
Nafisa*, 20, was shopping for winter scarves with her sister in Kabul last October when the pair were confronted by four uniformed Taliban morality police. One demanded to know why she wasn’t dressed like her sister, who wore head to toe black with a face covering, then ordered her to get into his vehicle. Terrified, she gripped her sister’s hand tightly and tried to stand her ground as a woman working with the police pulled her away.
