The Taliban who rule Afghanistan have just incinerated hundreds of musical instruments they seized in recent months in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and several of its provinces.
Afghanistan’s Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice tweeted on July 19 that the equipment had been destroyed in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law.
It argues that music has caused “corruption” and “the loss of our youth and the decline of society.”
The Taliban are reactionary Muslims who strongly oppose most music, believing musical instruments to be evil devices forbidden by Islamic law.
The Afghan government has banned Afghans from playing or listening to music with the exception of the Taliban’s own songs and rhymes.
Last week, 20 people from a wedding party were arrested for playing music in Ghazni, a city in arid southeastern Afghanistan.
Radio stations have been ordered not to broadcast music. A few months ago, the Vice and Virtue department in Badakhshan Province shut down Saday-e-Zan Radio for a few days for playing music.
The Taliban have also ordered schools for girls to close. And they ordered women to cover up from head to toe, even in very hot places like Lashkar Gah where temperatures in summer routinely rise to over 110 degrees. If you are a woman in Afghanistan, you need to cover yourself from head to toe, even when it is extremely hot outside. Essentially, you have to wear a tent that completely drapes your body and face, although a crocheted screen is permitted around your eyes. You aren’t allowed to just cover your body and your hair, like in neighboring Iran. Iran is viewed as too moderate and feminist by the Taliban who rule Afghanistan. The Associated Press reported last May on Afghanistan’s tightening of its dress code for women:
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers …. ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe clothing in public, a sharp hard-line pivot that confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and was bound to further complicate Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community.
The decree, which calls for women to only show their eyes and recommends they wear the head-to-toe burqa, evoked similar restrictions on women during the Taliban’s previous rule between 1996 and 2001….
The Taliban used records that the U.S. left behind in Afghanistan to track down, torture, and kill Afghans who helped the U.S. and its NATO allies. The Biden administration carelessly allowed these records to fall into the hands of the enemy.
