Kabul: The Taliban-led Afghan government has banned video games, foreign films and music in the western city of Herat. This information has been given in the media report. RFE/RL reported that the ban (which came without warning) by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Evil has forced the closure of more than 400 businesses in Herat.
It cracked down on leisure and other forms of entertainment that clash with the Taliban’s extremist interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Earlier this month, also in Herat, the Taliban closed restaurant gardens to women and families. In October 2022, the group closed cafes across the country offering hookah (the smoking of which is a popular pastime among Afghan men).
Earlier in May, the Taliban banned men and women from eating together in restaurants in Herat and closed restaurants owned and run by women in the city, RFE/RL reported. Was. The hard-line Islamist group has aggressively re-imposed harsh restrictions on how Afghans can appear in public and how men and women interact, following a US-led military offensive and two decades of UN-backed government a reminder of his brutal rule in the late 1990s before being displaced by the
The effect of the Taliban restrictions on businesses is evident in Herat, an ancient center of cultural and intellectual life in the Muslim world that lies at a strategic crossroads leading to Iran and Turkmenistan. In the years before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Hazrat Market was the center of video gaming in Herat. Maulvi Azizurrahman Muhajir, the provincial head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Evil, said authorities closed gaming parlors after several families complained that their children were wasting time there.
He told Radio Azadi, that “these shops were selling films that depicted and promoted Indian and Western values and culture, which are very different from Afghan culture and traditions”. reiterated the argument that he considers such everyday leisure activities to be un-Islamic.
Read the latest news about banking, economy and economic affairs on The Eastern Herald.
