Taliban * ban Afghans from shaving their beards

As the head of the information and culture department of the southern Afghan province of Helmand clarified in an interview with Ettelaat, the restrictions came into force there at the end of the week. In addition, as in Kandahar, there was a ban on the performance of music.

According to the representative of local authorities, the decisions on the measures of restriction were taken at a meeting of the recently created - instead of the Ministry of Women Affairs - the Ministry of Islamic Call, Orientation, Good Command and Prohibition of the Objectionable. A similar agency, Amr be maaruf wa nakhi az munkar, endowed with the functions of the Islamic morality police, existed from 1996 to 2001. Then the militants were also in power in Afghanistan.

Earlier, the head of the commission on the execution of punishments in Afghanistan, Nureddin Torabi, said that the Taliban * would again use the practice of chopping off limbs and introduce the death penalty, as was the case during their rule.

* the movement is recognized as terrorist and is prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation