Afghanistan: Taliban ask TV stations to stop broadcasting series featuring women

The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice called on Sunday, November 21, for Afghan television stations to stop broadcasting series featuring women. This in the framework of new “religious directives”.

Taliban ask TV stations to stop broadcasting series featuring women

The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has asked Afghan television stations to stop airing series featuring women, as part of new “religious directives” broadcast on Sunday, November 21.

“TV stations should avoid screening soap operas and serials in which women have played rosewater,” a ministry document said for the media’s attention.

Avoid programs “opposed to Islamic values.”

“It is not a question of rules, but of religious directives,” ministry spokesman Hakif Mohajir specified.

Afghan TV stations are also asked to avoid programs “opposed to Islamic and Afghan values”, as well as those that insult religion or “show the prophet and his companions”.

This is the first time this ministry has attempted to regulate Afghan television since the Taliban seized power in mid-August .

Television banned by the Taliban during their first reign

During his first reign, from 1996 to 2001, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, charged with ensuring the daily respect of Islamic values among the population, was feared for its fundamentalism and the penalties it carried . The Taliban had banned television, movies and all forms of entertainment considered immoral.

People caught watching television were punished and their equipment destroyed, and being in possession of a VCR was punishable by public flogging. For a time, it was even possible to see TV sets hanging from lampposts.