KABUL, 19 July 2006 — The Afghan government’s moves toward setting up a “vice and virtue” department similar to one that became notorious under the Taleban regime has raised alarm among rights groups and analysts.

The creation of the Department for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was approved by the Cabinet last month and is pending approval by Parliament when it reconvenes at the end of July.

Officials say the department will be vastly different to the harsh one of the same name that operated under the extremist Taleban regime, but analysts have expressed concern, warning of a “Talebanization” of Afghanistan.

“When we talk of ‘vice and virtue’...the one introduced by the Taleban comes to our minds. But it won’t be like that,” presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi said.

“It will be an organization which will work on promoting morality in society as exists in any other Islamic country,” he told reporters.

Vice and virtue departments exist in some Islamic countries but the one in the Taleban’s Afghanistan became notorious the world over for its brutal imposition of the hard-liners’ codes of behavior.

Under the 1996-2001 rule of the Taleban, police from the department patrolled the streets in search of violators of their strict version of Islamic law.

They would lash men without beards and whose heads were not covered, those who failed to attend prayers five times a day and women who were not fully shrouded by the head-to-toe burqa.

Women who were not accompanied by a male family member outside of their homes were also beaten while music, watching movies, theater and cinema were forbidden.

The department also carried out Taleban punishments, such as public executions.

But the new department will be “totally different,” said another presidential spokesman, Siamak Hirawi.

“This will not have any police or physical forces,” he said.

It would merely preach Islamic virtues, which include praying and women dressing conservatively. It would also speak out against vices such as drinking alcohol and prostitution.

But political analyst and MP Shukria Barikzai said it was worrying that the boundaries of the proposed department had not been clearly defined.

“The government presents it as a symbolic force today but there is no guarantee that tomorrow this force does not change to a brutal and religious extremist force, the same as the past,” she said.

“I am surprised — what is the need to recreate what is a bad memory for the public?” she asked.