Subject: Afghanistan's Taliban criticise UN human rights rapporteur

                                                             

KABUL, March 14 (AFP) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban Tuesday  criticised UN Human Rights special rapporteur Kamal Hossain for "making propaganda" against the Islamic fundamentalist militia. Anis, an official Taliban newspaper, carried a foreign ministry  statement attacking Hossain after the UN official highlighted the poor state of women's rights in Afghanistan.

"Mr Kamal Hossein... on March 11 had published an article in the  mass media as if women's rights were not observed in Afghanistan," the statement said.

The Taliban, who hold most of the war-torn country, have  accorded "due importance to women's rights according to Islamic values and Afghan culture", the statement added.

"He is a partial person. When he visits Afghanistan, he admires  the Islamic Emirate. But when he leaves Afghanistan, he makes propaganda against the Islamic Emirate," it said.

After they took Kabul in 1996, the Taliban ordered local women  not to report to their jobs outside the home or to educational centres and ordered they be fully covered from head to toe in public.

Last week the militia held a gathering of women here in their  first effort to mark International Women's Day.

A Bangladeshi diplomat, Hossain was appointed to the post last  year and has visited Kabul once.

The Taliban statement also accused Hossain of ignoring alleged  women's rights violations in the northeastern areas of the country controlled by the opposition groups.