BRUSSELS, Oct 1 (Reuter) - A European commissioner attacked the United Nations on Tuesday for failing to censor Afghanistan for slipping back into what she said was the barbarianism of the Dark Ages. European humanitarian aid Commissioner Emma Bonino criticised the United Nations for their silence over the fate of Aghanistan's women under the new Islamic regime established by the Taleban. "I thought that the UN was the body which protects human rights. I think that what is happening in Afghanistan is bringing people back to the Dark Ages, and particularly the women," Bonino told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's not acceptable that everyone should be quiet." Describing the country as the "theatre of a major humanitarian crisis" she said she was astonished that declarations about human rights made at the fourth United Nations world conference on women in Beijing were not now being followed up with action. "I wonder what is the use of the conference in Beijing...if afterwards the same organisations are n

ot saying a word about the violation of the most basic human rights," she said. She said there should be more criticism of the Taliban whom she referred tp as "a barbaric power". After the Islamic Taleban militia took Kabul last week it said it would impose strict fundamentalist limits on women -- making them stop working, stay at home and wear veils in public. Bonino expressed deep concern about how women, widowed during Afghanistan's troubles, would survive if no longer allowed to work and about the consequences of female refugees who might not want to return to the nation under the new regime. Bonino described the Taleban policy of forcing men to have beards as a "humiliation" for men. The Taleban promise to govern Afghanistan, three quarters of which they now control, according to Islamic Sharia law, including punishments such as death for murder, stoning for adultery and amputation for theft.