The Taliban has ordered to behead mannequins used in clothes shops, citing their use as a violation of Sharia Law. The statement came from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice which said “All the statues and mannequins in your stores must be headless.”
According to the Taliban, the display of Mannequins accounts for Idol worship which is banned in Islam. The Taliban officials have ruled that the mannequins are ‘sinful idols’, and therefore they have to be beheaded.
The worshipping of idols is considered a sin in Islam, and radical Islamist groups like Taliban, ISIS etc enforce this rule very strictly.
Initially, the ministry had ordered the shopkeepers to only remove the dummies, but after shopkeepers refused to do so saying that it will hurt their business, the Taliban authorities issued the new beheading order. As shopkeepers had initially criticized the Taliban’s earlier move to ban mannequins and complained against the order, Sheikh Aziz-u-Rahman who heads the ministry ordered to behead the dummies instead.
Businessman Abdul Wadood Faiz Zada in an interview to Italian newspaper Repubblica said, “Each mannequin costs $100, or $80 or $70, and beheading them will be a huge financial loss.”
While Afghanistan continues to be under serious economic crisis, The Taliban is in no mood to stop their crackdown exercises in the name of Islam.
