The Taliban government has banned Afghanistan women from visiting the popular national park, Band-e-Amir, in Bamiyan province, an Afghan agency, Tolo News, reported on Sunday.

The outlet also disclosed that Afghanistan’s acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, had called on religious clerics and security agencies to forbid women from entering the park until a solution was found.

According to Mr Hanafi, the ban was because women had not been observing hijab inside the park and that visiting the park to sightsee “was not obligatory”.

“Women and our sisters cannot go to Band-e-Amir until we agree on a principle,” said Mr Hanafi. “The security agencies, elders and the inspectors should take action in this regard. Going for sightseeing is not obligatory”.

However, Sayed Nasrullah Waezi, head of the Bamiyan Shia Ulema Council, said, “There are complaints about lack of hijab or bad hijab; these are not Bamiyan residents. They come here from other places”.

Also, Afghan former MP Mariam Solaimankhil shared a poem she had written on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the ban and wrote, “We’ll return, I’m sure of it.”

Fereshta Abbasi of Human Rights Watch disclosed that women had been banned from visiting the park on Women’s Equality Day and wrote that it was a “total disrespect to the women of Afghanistan.”

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, asked why stopping women from visiting Band-e-Amir “is necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture?”.

Meanwhile, the Band-e-Amir National Park was the first Afghanistan national park in 2009 and a popular tourist centre. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) describes the park as a “naturally created group of lakes with special geological formations and structure, as well as natural and unique beauty”.

The Taliban has been known for implementing bans on women doing certain activities on what it insists is a temporary basis, including preventing them from attending schools in December 2022 and many more.