The Taliban have ordered shop owners in western Afghanistan to cut the heads off mannequins, insisting figures representing the human form violate Islamic law, IgbereTV reports
A video clip showing men sawing the heads off shop dummies in Herat has gone viral on social media, drawing scorn both inside and outside the country.
Since returning to power in August, the Taliban have increasingly imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law and severely curtailed freedoms — particularly those of women and girls.
While the hardline Islamists have not issued any formal national policy on mannequins — or other creeping restrictions — various local authorities are clamping down on what they say are immoral practices.
Aziz Rahman, head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Herat, confirmed the order to AFP on Wednesday.
Some shopkeepers had tried to get around the decapitation order by covering mannequin heads with scarves or bags, but Rahman said that did not go far enough.
“If they just cover the head or hide the entire mannequin, the angel of Allah will not enter their shop or house and bless them,” he said.
Several shopkeepers in the city of around 600,000 were angered by the order.
“As you can see, we have cut the heads off,” Basheer Ahmed, a garment seller, told AFP, adding each dummy had cost 5,000 afghanis (around $50).
“When there is no mannequin how do you expect us to sell our products? The customer likes it when the garment is draped properly over a mannequin.”
