Taleban ease foreigner restrictions

Many foreign aid workers have been expelled

By Kate Clark in Islamabad

Aid agencies and the United Nations have been presented with new rules for the conduct of foreigners working in Afghanistan.

Decree number 14 was passed by the Tale ban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and includes bans on wearing immoral clothing, playing music loudly and trying to convert Afghans.

The Taleban accuse the aid workers of being missionaries

The edict was passed before the recent arrests of 24 aid workers on suspicion of propagating Christianity and has only just become public.

Inviting an Afghan to any religion other than Islam is deemed punishable by a short prison sentence or deportation.

An earlier edict, passed in January, said that anyone instigating a conversion would be liable to the death penalty - as would any Afghan who renounced Islam.

Softer than Saudi

Aid workers have been left feeling much more relaxed by the new edict.

It is considerably more lenient than an earlier version which was leaked in June and which many people said would force them to leave Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's Taleban rulers follow a purist form of Islam

Rather than there being total bans on playing music, eating pork or drinking alcohol, foreigners are now obliged only to avoid doing these things in public.

That makes the rules on alcohol use softer than in Saudi Arabia.

And it means the Taleban will not be checking what people do in their own homes.

Limits on stoning

Islamic punishments - lashes or death by stoning - are reserved only for sexually assaulting an Afghan or foreign woman, rather than just for adultery.

Afghan women have to comply with a strict dress code

Jurisdiction over foreigners breaking the new rules has passed to the Taleban Foreign Ministry, rather than the feared religious police.

The previous leaked version made foreigners suspect that certain hardline elements of the Taleban were trying to engineer their withdrawal from the country.

Some had wondered whether the Shelter Now International arrests will also be used to brand all international aid agencies as using humanitarian activities as cover for Christian missionary work.

A spokesman for SNI whose 24 staff members in detention for promoting Christianity was visibly relieved after seeing the new list of rules.

But he admitted it would not help 16 detained Afghan members of staff, who could still be charged with the capital crime of renouncing their faith.

Religious police reined in

Those making the arrests are the religious police - the most extreme and powerful organ of the Taleban state.

For now, foreign aid workers are waiting for the fall-out from the Shelter Now crisis.

However, they say they can live under the new rules.

Aid workers are fighting a desperate level of need

Most outline the sort of code of conduct which foreigners already live under.

Kabul is already one of the most restricted places to live in the world.

Foreign women aren't allowed to drive and have to obey strict dress codes.

There are no cinemas, theatres or bars - all illegal under Taleban rules.

It is forbidden to visit Afghans in their homes.

And even walking in the nearby hills is difficult as many places are still mined.

While the countryside is often just as conservative, the lack of Taleban officials makes is much more relaxed. In particular, Afghan hospitality culture flourishes - and it is virtually impossible to avoid visiting Afghans in their homes.