ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Islamic State will charge and detain anyone watching TV during Ramadan, according to a statement from the group reportedly published in towns and villages under their control around Syria’s Rif in Dimashq governorate.

The statements that were received and shared by Syrian activists on Tuesday said “people must spend their time during Ramadan [Islam’s holy month] praying to God. Watching TV is ‘haram’ and is not allowed during Ramadan.”

The militants released a similar statement last week in Deir ez-Zor, which announced that people who do not follow the rules will be fined and the head of the family will be arrested during the fasting month, which begins the first week of June in Muslim countries around the world.

Since the ISIS takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, the jihadis have been imposing new rules and regulations, backed by strict punishments that include the threat of death for offenders.

In Ramadan last year in the city of Mosul, which ISIS controls, the group declared that people could work only two hours a day and women were not allowed to leave their homes during the fasting month.

The directive was announced through local television channels in Mosul as well as on banners posted in the streets, a source inside the city told Rudaw at that time.

ISIS decreed that people had to spend their days in prayer and could only work two hours a day.

The group also banned residents from performing prayers for Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and is one of the most important Muslim feasts, controversially claiming the practice does not belong in the religion.