Established in 1996, the vice and virtue ministry received heavy subsidies and training from Saudi Arabia. When the Taliban took over Kabul, the committee announced a ban on sorcery and American-style haircuts[2] It was closed when the Talibans were ousted, but Shinwari, an outspoken advocate of orthodoxy and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan reinstated it in 2003, and renamed it the Ministry for Haj and Religious Affairs.[3]