Taliban vice and virtue laws provide ‘distressing vision’ for Afghanistan, warns UN envoy

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A top UN official is warning that the Taliban’s new vice and virtue laws provide a distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future. The laws include a requirement for a woman to conceal her face, body and voice outside the home. Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the U.N. mission in the country, said Sunday the laws extend the “already intolerable restrictions” on the rights of women and girls, with even the sound of a female voice in public apparently deemed a moral violation. In remarks broadcast Sunday by state-controlled broadcaster RTA, Vice and Virtue Minister Mohammad Khaled Hanafi said nobody had the right to violate women’s rights based on inappropriate customs.