Afghan artists burn their own works

ISLAMABAD/KABUL/NEW

Y O R K • The Taliban will ban music in public places because it is “unislamic” as Afghan artists began destroying their works to avoid persecution.

A Taliban spokesman tried to give the impression the movement had changed its ways. “Music is forbidden in Islam,” Zabiullah Mujahid told The New York Times, “but we’re hoping that we can persuade people not to do such things, instead of pressuring them.”

The Taliban permitted religious singing during its first government of the late 1990s, but regarded other forms of music to be a distraction that could encourage impure thoughts.

Afghan musician Shakir

Amahung said he has performed on TV, at functions and for parties of senior officials and generals. “Anybody in the entertainment industry — your days are numbered,” he said.

Artists began to burn and tear up portraits and sculptures that could be interpreted as secular or supporting Western values.

“My heart shatters to see and talk to artists who have started destroying their own art out of fear,” wrote Omaid H Sharifi, a curator who posted images of mutilated artworks on Twitter.

Fears are that the Taliban may loot and destroy cultural artifacts in Afghanistan’s National Museum in Kabul, one of the world’s greatest repositories of ancient cultures. Experts are concerned that the militants will target heritage as they did the last time they controlled the country, when they ransacked the museum and dynamited the 2,000-yearold Buddhas of Bamiyan.