Draconian dress laws echo the Taleban, claims MP

AFGHAN MPs have moved to ban women wearing make-up, men wearing jeans and couples talking together in public, in a series of Draconian proposals reminiscent of the Taleban.

It comes a day after the supreme court passed almost 100 death sentences despite grave concerns about corruption in the country's courts.

The plans to crack down on women's rights – and men's fashion – have prompted calls for Britain to withdraw its support for the Afghan government.

Bashar Dost, a presidential hopeful, said: "The international community needs to do something strong. It is time the international community said, 'We are giving our money, we are giving our soldier's blood, it's time we had a good government'."

The Taleban-style proposals are the work of a parliamentary committee on antisocial behaviour and measures against narcotics. The group, which is chaired by a mullah, argued women should not wear make-up at work, men should not wear designer jeans, let their hair grow long "like a girl's" or wear jewellery.

It also said men and women should be forbidden from speaking to each other in public, unless they are related.

The hardline Taleban regime banned television and forbade women leaving their homes without a male relative. But television and music have boomed since the regime collapsed in 2001, and women are now free to go outside on their own, although many still wear all-enveloping burqas.

Mr Dost, an MP from Kabul, added: "This proves that the Afghan government and the Afghan parliament doesn't believe in human rights."

But another MP, Pir Bakhsh Gardiwal, a member of the committee who helped draw up the proposals, insisted they were not an attack on women's rights.

"Afghanistan is an Islamic country. That's why we were discussing these things. It is nothing to do with the Taleban. We are discussing the law according to our constitution," he said.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Kabul insisted it would not affect their support for the government.