Women and girls without a close male relative accompanying them were banned from entering coffee shops in Afghanistan’s Herat province.

Sheikh Azizi ur Rahman Al-Mohajer, the head of virtue and vice of the Taliban office in Herat, said from now on playing music and women and girls without a ‘mahram’ (relative) are forbidden, the report said.

He said criminals are also not allowed in coffee shops. According to him, most insecurities, kidnappings, robberies and destructive actions can be planned in such coffee shops.

“The coffee shop owners are warned if any instruction violations are reported, they will be faced with legal actions,” Al-Mohajer said, adding that coffee shops can be remain open till 9.30 p.m.

According to him, these coffee shops serve as a convenient place for most of the moral corruption something has misled the youths in Herat. He emphasised any decree on closing all coffee shops in Herat can be issued from Kabul.

Nearly five months after regaining power, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has reclaimed its role as the enforcer of the group’s radical interpretation of Islamic law, RFE/RL reported.

In a spate of decrees issued in recent weeks, the Ministry has imposed restrictions on the behavior, movement, and appearances of residents, particularly those of women and girls.

While the militants have claimed the decrees are only recommendations, Taliban religious police have enforced the new laws, sometimes violently, in many areas.

Many Afghans have voiced their anger at the Taliban’s religious policing, saying it is a tool for humiliating citizens and controlling every aspect of their lives.

For Afghans, the decrees are reminiscent of the draconian rules the Taliban imposed during its brutal rule from 1996 to 2001.

Obaidullah Baheer, a Kabul-based academic, said by forcing its own interpretation of Sharia law upon Afghans, the Taliban is “locking out the population from decision-making” and exposing its “tyrannical tendencies”, the report added.

Last month, the Taliban ordered shop owners in the western city of Herat to cut off the heads of mannequins, insisting they were un-Islamic.

The order angered local shopkeepers, who are already reeling from an economic crisis triggered by the Taliban takeover and the sudden halt in international assistance.

Some shopkeepers appeared to be already complying with the orders by sawing off the heads of shop dummies.

In late December, the Taliban announced that women seeking to travel more than 72 km should be refused transport unless they were accompanied by a close male relative.

The advisory distributed by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice also directed all vehicle drivers to refrain from playing music in their cars and not to pick up female passengers who did not wear an Islamic hijab covering their hair.

Since then, Taliban religious police have erected checkpoints across Kabul to inspect whether taxi drivers were complying with the orders.

Men face new regulations, too, as the Taliban’s religious police have instructed them to grow beards.

In a decree issued in late September, the Taliban banned the shaving of beards and trimming of hair in Uruzgan.

Violations can result in severe punishment, while barbers who were directly ordered to halt the practice are now struggling to make ends meet.