KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 4: Following of Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, fears are mounting that Afghan women might suffer the brutal treatment they faced during the 1990s.

Under the newly established government, the Taliban have pledged that woman in Afghanistan will enjoy rights based on Islamic law or Shariah. However, it is unclear what this will imply.

The Shariah leaves a lot of opportunity for interpretation. When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan previously, they enforced a stringent one, prohibiting women from working outside the home or leaving the house without a male guardian, banning girls from attending school, and publicly whipping those who disobeyed the group’s morality code.

Shariah is the legal system of Islam and it is based on the Quran, Islam’s holy book. Shariah is a code of conduct that all Muslims should follow, including prayers, fasting and charitable giving to the poor.

Earlier in the 1996 to 2001, when Taliban controlled Afghanistan, they banned television and most musical instrument. They established a department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice based on Saudi model.

Morality police personnel enforced restrictions on behaviour, appearance, and movement by driving about in pickup trucks, publicly humiliating and flogging women who did not follow their standards. According to Amnesty International, a woman in Kabul, Afghanistan, had the end of her thumb chopped off in 1996 for wearing nail paint.

Experts have been watching Taliban leaders’ recent actions for sign of a shift their attitude towards women.

A senior Taliban official gave an interview to a female television journalist in Kabul this week as part of the group’s broader effort to a project a more moderate image to the world and within Afghanistan.

According to The Indian Express, an hour later a renowned state television anchor woman announced that the Taliban had indefinitely suspended her and other female employees.

According to a Taliban spokesperson, women would be allowed to work and study while another official has stated that women should engage in governance, marking a possible departure from previous traditions.

Outside of Kabul, some women have been warned not to leave the house without a male relative and Taliban have barred women from studying at least one university. They have also closed down certain women’s clinic and girl’s school.

Former Afghan deputy minister for women’s affairs Hosna Jalil told Deutsche Welle, a German news organisation, that she had little faith in the Taliban’s ability to interpret Shariah differently now.

“For them, Shariah rule meant no access to school, limited access to health care, no access to justice, no shelter, no food security, no employment, practically nothing,” she was quoted as saying by Deutsche Welle.