Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have told television broadcasters to ensure that female presenters working in local stations cover their faces when on air, and that it is ‘not up for discussion’, a government official said.

The order follows a recent directive from Taliban authorities that Afghan women must cover their faces in public, and is seen as the latest sign of a possible return to the Taliban’s ultraconservative rule of the past and an escalation of restrictions on women that are causing anger at home and abroad.