The radical Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan have arrested six people for allegedly playing music. You face penalties.
In Afghanistan, the so-called moral police of the ruling Taliban arrested six people because they are said to have played music. This was reported by the news channel Tolonews on Saturday. The arrests were made during a family celebration in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north of the country, a spokesman for the militant Islamist group said. Further details were not initially known.
After returning to power in the summer of 2021, the Taliban enacted numerous laws to repress the population, especially girls and women. This includes, for example, the broadcasting of music. This was already the case with her reign in the 1990s. At that time, the Taliban had banned music as supposedly “un-Islamic”.
Prisoners could face draconian punishments
Even after the Taliban took power again, many musicians have fled the country or have given up their profession and hidden the instruments, which are considered illegal under Taliban rule. Music is destroying society and misleading the youth, senior Taliban officials claim. Accordingly, no music may be played at weddings either.
Despite the announcement that it would govern more moderately, Taliban rule has recently become more authoritarian and dogmatic. They are increasingly excluding girls and women from public life. They are denied access to education, their job opportunities have been severely curtailed, they are not allowed to visit parks, fairs and gyms, and they are not allowed to travel without a male guardian. In addition, women are forced to cover themselves in public.
According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, up to 62,000 security cameras are to be installed in Kabul and other areas to implement these rules. The UN speaks of a “gender apartheid”.
What threatens the prisoners now is unclear. But the Taliban rely on sometimes draconian punishments. Again and again people are whipped or tortured. Musicians’ instruments are also burned. As reported by “Amnesty International”, the Taliban are also said to have murdered a musician, the Afghan folk singer Fawad Andarabi.
