Taliban rebukes UN concerns over laws banning women's faces, voices in public

The Taliban on Monday rejected concerns and criticism of the United Nations over new vice and virtue laws which ban women in Afghanistan from baring their faces and speaking in public places.

Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the U.N. mission in the country, UNAMA, said Sunday the laws provided a "distressing vision" for Afghanistan’s future. She said the laws extend the " already intolerable restrictions " on the rights of women and girls, with "even the sound of a female voice" outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation.