The department of vice and virtue in the western province of Herat ordered shopping malls to remove the heads of mannequins.
The department in a statement said that the mannequins are similar to statues and must not be allowed in the mar-kets. “These are the statues- they are defined in the (holy) books and should not be in Islam. These were being wor-shipped. They (the shopkeepers) said that they display the clothes on them. I ordered that they (the mannequins) should have their heads removed,” said Aziz Rahman, the head of Herat’s de-partment of vice and virtue.
The department warned that the shop-keepers will be punished if they violate the order. But garment sellers and mall owners criticized the decision made by the de-partment. “We use the mannequins to display the clothes,” said Aziz Ahmad Haidar, a garment seller.
The shopkeepers said that the manne-quins are being used to display men’s fashions in other Islamic countries. “These mannequins are used to display clothes in all countries including Is-lamic countries,” said Mehran Azizi, a resident of Herat.
