The Taliban are going back on their pledge to be more "moderate" in handling gender by rolling out new restrictions on the media.

The Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice released a series of "religious guidelines" on Sunday that will change much of what Afghanistan will be allowed to broadcast. These include restrictions on content that goes against their standards for "Islamic or Afghani" values and the presentation of women in the country.

"These are not rules, but a religious guideline," ministry spokesman Hakif Mohajir told Agence France-Presse.

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The new guidelines would ban any content against Islamic or Afghani values, including images that depict the Prophet Muhammad or other Islamic historical figures.

Any female journalist who wants to appear on television should wear a hijab. The ministry also called on Afghani television channels to stop broadcasting dramas or soap operas featuring female actors, and it declared depicting male bodies, including unclothed torsos, as "inappropriate."

The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was founded to replace Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs after the Taliban took over Kabul in August.

While the Taliban describe themselves as more moderate than their previous iterations, they have increasingly enforced gender-related restrictions in recent months. These include restrictions on what women can wear while at university.

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Several Afghani women have been restricted from attending school in person and continue participating through other means.

A Taliban spokesman said in September that women cannot do government jobs, alleging that "you put something on her neck that she cannot carry."