- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 24 May 2001 01.35 BST
Taliban officials confirmedlast night that the country's tiny Hindu minority would have to carry thumb-size pieces of yellow cloth whenever they ventured outdoors, but said it was meant to prevent any "disturbance" of non- Muslims who might otherwise be detained by police.
Hindu women would now have to cover their faces with a veil, said Abdul Hanan Hemat of the Taliban's news agency.
Mr Hemat denied that Hindus would have to fly yellow flags from their rooftops and said that the tag could be worn in an inside pocket.
The edict provoked a mixed reaction from Hindus at Kabul's dilapidated temple yesterday. One man vowed to leave while Inder Singh Majboor, a Sikh and Hindu community leader, thought that there was "no cause for concern".
"This is not something new. We reached an agreement with the authorities two years ago that the Hindus should wear a grey skull hat and a ring," he insisted.
It is still not clear exactly when Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader, intends to implement the edict, although previous experience of Taliban fatwas suggests that once announced they are irreversible.
Only around 500 Hindus remain in Afghanistan, compared with the 2,000-strong Sikh minority. Most Hindus left in the mid- 90s, before the Taliban arrived. Most of those remaining live in Kabul.
The US has already strongly condemned the move, calling it the "latest in a long list of outrageous oppressions".
White House spokesman Richard Boucher said that the yellow tags unfairly stigmatised a minority group and could "never, never be justified". India also expressed anger, denouncing the edict as "deplorable".
But the sanguine reaction from some Hindus inside Afghanistan suggests that the tags might at least offer some respite from the heavy-handed and humourless religious police.
The Taliban vice and virtue officials routinely beat up and imprison Afghan men who fail to grow small beards, and have even been known to pluck clean-shaven foreign journalists from their cars.
The latest edict follows a struggle within the Taliban movement that has seen hardliners consolidate their grip on power.
Last week, armed Taliban guards closed down an Italian-funded hospital, beating up staff on the grounds that men and women were eating lunch together. Officials also closed four of the UN's six offices, because of the imposition of further sanctions on Afghanistan earlier this year.
But this is the first time that the dwindling and demoralised Hindu community has faced any persecution.
In March, when Taliban fighters pulverised the two giant Buddha statues at Bamiyan on the grounds that they were blasphemous, officials maintained that "idols" would still be allowed inside Hindu temples.
