Afghan women are uploading videos of themselves singing in defiance of new restrictions imposed by the Taliban that order them to be silent in public, reports The Telegraph. Women from both inside Afghanistan and abroad have joined the movement.

The online protest campaign challenges the Taliban's recently announced vice and virtue laws. On Wednesday, the Taliban issued restrictions requiring women to conceal their faces, bodies, and voices outside the home. Women are prohibited from singing or reciting the Koran in public, and their clothing must not be thin, tight, or short. They have also been ordered not to speak loudly inside their homes in case their voices are heard outside.

Afghan women are boldly countering Taliban's New Draconian law by singing out louder than ever !#MyVoiceIsNotForbiden #UntiedAgainstGenderApartheid pic.twitter.com/50g6qvXkHx

— Nilofar Ayoubi (@NilofarAyoubi) August 27, 2024

 In one video, a woman in Afghanistan sings with her face and body fully covered. "You placed the stamp of silence on my mouth until further notice," she says. "You will [not] provide me with bread and food until further notice. You've imprisoned me inside the house for the crime of being a woman."

The lyrics appear to reference restrictions the Taliban imposed on the basic rights and freedoms of women and girls shortly after seizing back control of the country three years ago. Among the rules was a ban on school attendance and higher education, which they said would last "until further notice."

Free Afghan Women

A woman from inside Afghanistan shared a video, she singing her voice in poetry:

"You have silenced my voice until further notice. You have imprisoned me in my home for the crime of being a woman."#WomenRights #Afghanistan #Freedom #UN pic.twitter.com/1BuXg3x46R

— Jahanzeb Wesa (@JahanzebWesa) August 27, 2024

 Another clip features a woman who left Afghanistan for Germany after the Taliban's return to power. She sings about the role of women in shaping history: "If I don't exist, who are you? Where are the true men among you? Without Ameneh and Rudabeh, where would Mohammad, Rostam, and Sohrab be?" The song references the mothers of the Prophet of Islam and famous male figures from Persian literature.

Volker Turk, the United Nations human rights chief, called on the Taliban to immediately repeal the "egregious" laws, which he said were attempting to turn women into shadows. Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the UN's Afghanistan mission, described the restrictions as providing a "distressing vision" for Afghanistan's future.

In response to global outrage against the laws, Taliban minister for vice and virtue, Khaled Hanafi, claimed on Tuesday that the international community lacked the authority to comment on Afghanistan. He emphasized that the Taliban would engage with other nations only within the framework of "Islamic laws."

Dr. Zahra Haqparast, a Germany-based women's activist who started a campaign against the new laws, said they were "the final bullet to the forehead of Afghan women." She added, "I started the campaign, and soon many more protesting girls joined. The Taliban should face sanctions. The world must not negotiate with them."

Haqparast, who lost her job as a dentist in Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, said, "Our voices are so loud, they're making them deaf. I want to sing a female revolutionary song so that my voice will deafen the ears of the terrorists. I want women to unite and raise their voices for their rights."

Women inside Afghanistan said the online protest was part of efforts to claim their right to be heard and to preserve their cultural identity amid the escalating restrictions on their freedoms. A former university lecturer in western Herat said, "The Taliban cannot silence our voices; we are half of this society, and they cannot even imagine how powerful we are."

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Israel twice struck chemical weapons facilities in Syria over the past two years in a campaign to prevent Syria from renewing chemical weapons production, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

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The accuracy of the report, which cited unidentified current and former US and Western intelligence officials, was confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with the operation who declined to be identified by name or nationality.

The IDF declined to comment.

There was no immediate comment from officials in Syria. Syria's government denies using chemical weapons. In 2013 it promised to surrender its chemical weapons, which it says it has done.

Repeated investigations by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that Syrian government forces used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in attacks between 2015 and 2018 that investigators said killed or injured thousands.

Israel has acknowledged conducting airstrikes in Syria against Iranian deployments or weapon hand-overs to guerrilla allies.

But, the newspaper reported, on June 8 Israeli Air Force jets hit three military targets near the cities of Damascus and Homs, all linked to Syria's former chemical weapons program.

In March the previous year, Israel targeted a villa and compound tied with the procurement of tricalcium phosphate (TCP), a chemical that can be used in nerve agents, the report said. The Post quoted Western intelligence officials who said that the TCP was ultimately intended to be used by the branch of the Syrian military that oversaw chemical weapons production until "at least" 2014.

The same officials said that prior to the airstrikes in March 2020 and June of this year, there were signs that the regime was poised to relaunch the manufacture of chemical weapons.

Repeated investigations by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons concluded that Syrian government forces used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in attacks between 2015 and 2018 that investigators said killed or injured thousands.

Israeli officials have voiced concern about the possibility of Syrian chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups.

The report also noted that both the Trump and Biden administrations were notified about the strikes and the intelligence that prompted them shortly after they took place.

i24NEWS contributed to this report

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The European Union is set to agree to sanction several Iranian individuals on Wednesday for human rights abuses, the first such measures since 2013, three EU diplomats said.

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EU envoys are expected to agree to impose travel bans and asset freezes on the individuals, the diplomats said, and their names would be published next week, when the sanctions take effect. They gave no further details.

The European Union declined to comment.

Like the United States, the European Union has an array of sanctions over human rights since 2011 on more than 80 Iranian individuals which have been renewed annually every April. Those will also be renewed on Wednesday, the three diplomats said.

Asked why the latest measures were being taken now, one of the diplomats said the EU was seeking to take a tougher stance to uphold human rights. This month, the EU sanctioned 11 people from countries including China, North Korea, Libya and Russia.

"Those responsible for serious rights violations must know there are consequences," an EU diplomat said.

The United Nations has regularly complained that Iran arrests political opponents in a clampdown on freedom of expression. On March 9, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, presented a report documenting Iran's high death penalty rate, executions of juveniles, the use torture to coerce confessions and the lawful marriage of girls as young as 10 years old.

Iran has repeatedly rejected accusations by the West of human rights abuses. Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

Despite the human rights situation, no Iranians have been added to that list since 2013, however, as the bloc has shied away from angering Iran in the hope of safeguarding a nuclear accord Tehran signed with world powers in 2015.

The three diplomats said the sanctions were not linked to efforts to revive the nuclear deal, which the United States pulled out of but now seeks to re-join. That deal made it harder for Iran to amass the fissile material needed for a nuclear bomb - a goal it has long denied - in return for sanctions relief.

"Tehran has grown increasingly exasperated with Europe, especially in the past several months, as the nuclear issue remains stuck, and the new sanctions will probably further fuel frustrations that Europe is simply falling in behind Washington," said Eurasia Group analyst Henry Rome.

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"For its part, Europe has a very delicate balancing act. It is trying to demonstrate that its desire to revive the nuclear agreement will not come at the expense of human rights, while also trying to ensure that its support of human rights does not come at the expense of the nuclear agreement."

The EU revoked its broader set of economic and financial sanctions on Iran in 2016 after the nuclear deal was struck, although it did impose sanctions on an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its staff in 2019, alleging Tehran plotted attacks in Denmark, France and the Netherlands. Iran rejects the accusations.

In a rare move last September, France, Britain and Germany summoned Iran's envoys to admonish them over their country's human rights record in what France's foreign ministry said were "serious and constant violations."

The three European countries had pushed for sanctions over Iran's missile program and its involvement in Syria in March 2018, when Britain was still a member of the EU.

But other EU governments feared it could also upset European firms' chances of winning lucrative contracts in Iran as the country tried to open up after decades of isolation.

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"We have received to date nearly 20,000 messages, videos, pictures, notes of the regime's abuses ... and hope they will continue to be sent to us," he told reporters. "We will continue to sanction Iranian officials who are responsible for these human rights abuses."

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Pompeo urged Iranians to continue exposing the regime's brutal crackdown on recent protests.

"The Iranian people are, once again, on the streets because of the regime's poor economic management. Instead of addressing their grievances, Tehran has responded with violence and by blaming those outside of the country."

"The United States hears you," Pompeo said. "We will continue to sanction Iranian officials who are responsible for these human rights abuses, just like we did last week to Iran's minister of communications."

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