Taliban order Afghan women to cover faces again

FILE PHOTO: An Afghan woman clad in burqa walks in the early morning in Kabul, Afghanistan September 2, 2019.REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

KABUL (Reuters) -Afghanistan's Taliban government ordered women on Saturday to cover their faces in public, a return to a signature policy of their past hardline rule and an escalation of restrictions that are causing anger at home and abroad.

A decree from the group's supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said that if a woman did not cover her face outside home, her father or closest male relative would be visited and face potential prison or firing from state jobs.