Free Republic

Islamists impose Taliban-type morals monitors By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore (Filed: 03/06/2003) The Islamist ruling parties in Pakistan's sensitive North West Frontier Province have ordered compulsory prayers for the population and will create a Taliban-style Department of Vice and Virtue to enforce their ruling. The move is part of a campaign by fundamentalists to turn the whole of Pakistan into a Taliban-style state and is only one of several crises that has paralysed the country and the nine-month-old civilian government. The six-party Alliance of Islamic parties, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which rules the province, said all offices, shops and schools...