Taliban reject UN concerns over laws banning women’s voices and bare faces in public

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban on Monday rejected concerns and criticism raised by the United Nations over new vice and virtue laws that 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 that 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...