Saturday 15 January 2022
Twitter video from Kabul
Taliban openly burn musical instruments
Under the hands of the Taliban, there is a strict ban on making music in Afghanistan. Music will no longer be allowed to be listened to while driving. A recently published Twitter clip shows how drastic the Taliban are enforcing their bans.
In Afghanistan, a video clip that is said to show militant Islamist Taliban burning musical instruments has caused a sensation on social media. The clip shows the Islamists insulting two musicians who were standing near the flames. The artists are laughed at and filmed by a surrounding crowd. The Taliban see making music as un-Islamic.
The footage circulated on social media shows that the clothes of the musicians insulted by the Taliban are torn and their hair is short. Hair cutting is a typical punishment used by the Taliban to punish those suspected of petty crimes.
Numerous musicians leave the country
After the Islamists took power in August 2021, many musicians fled the country in fear for their lives and livelihoods. Even when driving, listening to music should be banned. This emerged from a letter from the Ministry for the Preservation of Virtue. It was initially unclear when the pictures, which are now believed to have come from the province of Paktika in the south-east of the country, were taken. The two-minute clip had more than 48,000 views on Twitter on Saturday.
“This video documents the Taliban’s barbaric attitude towards musicians and music in Afghanistan, where music is banned,” exiled founder of the Afghan National Institute of Music Ahmad Sarmast wrote on Twitter. Afghan pop singer Arjana Sajeed shared the video on Facebook and expressed sharp criticism. In it she condemned that her compatriots were insulted and that the instruments were burned. The musician, who also left the country last year, wrote that her heart hurts when she saw these pictures.