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Taliban Says Hindus To Wear Labels
WASHINGTON, May 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In order to safeguard the rights of Hindus in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban leadership announced plans on Tuesday to order Hindus to wear identity labels on their clothing to differentiate them from Muslims.
Abdul Hanan Hemat, a senior spokesman for the Taliban Information Ministry said that the demand was only to save the Hindus from harassment during regular spot-checks when police herd Muslims into mosques to check whether their beards meet strict requirements.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kandahar said that it is unclear whether the order was in fact in effect because Mullah Omar, supreme leader of the Taliban government, had yet to approve it.
The proposed label is a yellow sticker that would be placed on the inside of pockets of Hindus in order to differentiate them from the majority Muslim population.
"It is only to differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Hindus should put a yellow piece of cloth the size of a thumb inside their pockets," Hemat told reporters.
He was quoting the Abdul Wali, chief of the religious police, officially known as the Minister for Fostering Virtue and Suppressing Vice.
"This is only a demand from the Hindu community," Hemat, who also heads the official Bakhtar news agency, said. The demand was only aimed at Hindus as Sikhs were recognizable from their beards and turbans, he added.
He said that Hindus could flash their stickers to mobile religious police squads patrolling Kabul and other major cities to ensure women are fully covered from head to toe by the traditional burqa garment and that men attend prayer meetings and do not trim their beards.
The spokesman denied reports that the Taliban's movement had ordered the Hindus to raise yellow flags on their rooftops.
Journalist Kamal Hyder said that according to Hindus he had spoken with, they "do not feel discriminated against."
"Most of these Hindus ... told us that they do not see discrimination in their day-to-day life," Hyder said, but "They were of course apprehensive about any edict regarding dress code."
"These people have been here for hundreds of years, and most of them were not having any difficulties here," added Hyder.
Hindus said that they had not received any information about the new rules from the Ministry of Virtue and Wisdom, but they had heard about the edict in the radio.
However, the news of the edict prompted an angry retort from Hindu India.
"We absolutely deplore such orders which patently discriminate against minorities," the Press Trust of India quoted an unnamed Indian foreign ministry official as saying.
"It is further evidence of the backward and unacceptable ideological underpinning of the Taliban."
Some Afghan Hindus do not feel comfortable wearing a label identifying them as Hindus, fearing it would degrade their position in society.
Local officials have said that there are 67 Hindu temples in Kandahar, but only one is functional. Predominantly a Sunni Muslim country, Afghanistan has a small Hindu and Sikh minority.
It officially has no Christians as the Taliban, which controls most of the country, have ruled that any Afghan converting to Christianity would be sentenced to death.
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