Taliban’s Morality Office in Ghazni Handles Over 900 Cases in Six Months
The Taliban’s Directorate for the Promotion of Virtue, Prevention of Vice, and Complaint Investigation in Ghazni province has announced it has handled more than 900 various cases in the first six months of this year. These cases include family disputes, inheritance violations, forced marriages, exchange of women in tribal feuds, and inter-ethnic conflicts.
Ezatullah Saeedi, spokesperson for the Taliban-appointed governor of Ghazni, said at a press conference that the department has also clamped down on what it calls un-Islamic amulet practices, suspending 18 individuals involved in writing such amulets.
Saeedi added that 89 complaints were registered during this period, of which 50 have so far been resolved. According to him, during the same timeframe, 1,684 individuals were referred to judicial institutions for allegedly committing “immoral acts.”
However, human rights organizations and local residents have raised concerns that rather than addressing people’s real problems, the department’s activities have increasingly taken on the character of social control and suppression of individual freedoms. Many of the registered cases reportedly go unexamined due to the absence of independent courts or are resolved under pressure and threats.
The Taliban administration, which lacks both domestic and international legitimacy, has been establishing such bodies to exert greater influence over the private lives of citizens — a move that has sparked widespread criticism from women’s rights activists and civil society figures.
