Afghanistan: Taliban bans music, video games, and foreign films

The Taliban, earlier this month, prohibited women and families from accessing the garden restaurants in Herat.

                                        Taliban bans music, video games, and foreign films

Video games, foreign movies, and music have been outlawed in Afghanistan under the Taliban government because they are considered to be anti-Islamic. This ban is first imposed in the western city of Herat in Afghanistan. More than 400 firms in Herat had to shut down as a result of the sudden ban enforced by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

According to Maulana Azizurrahman Mohajir, the provincial head of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the establishments were shut down after several parents complained about how their kids were wasting time there. He said, “These shops were selling films that depicted and promoted Indian and Western values and culture, which are very different from Afghan culture and traditions.”

Reiterating that the Taliban considers such activities un-Islamic, he added, “The films they were selling did not have women in hijab, which is against Sharia. This is why the sale of such films is prohibited.”

The ban came after restrictions on other pastimes and types of entertainment that go against the Taliban’s radical Islamic Sharia law. The Taliban, earlier this month, prohibited women and families from accessing the garden restaurants in Herat.

The Taliban closed hookah facilities across the nation in October 2022. Smoking hookah is an everyday pastime for Afghan men. The Taliban closed down eateries owned and run by women in the city of Herat earlier in May 2022 and forbade men and women from dining together there. The Islamist group, has forcefully imposed severe constraints on how Afghans can behave and how men and women can interact with each other.