https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f...usic-52hssc62w
Folk singer Fawad Andarabi dragged from home and shot after Taliban outlaw music
Taliban fighters have shot dead an Afghan folk singer after it outlawed music and women’s voices on television and radio in the bellwether province of Kandahar, laying the ground for a nationwide ban in an echo of the brutal Islamist regime of 20 years ago.
Fawad Andarabi was dragged from his home and shot in the head in the village of Andarab, north of Kabul on Friday, his family said. The murder has provoked an outcry and fuelled fears of a return to the repressive regime of the 1990s since
Taliban fighters overran Kabul two weeks ago.
Andarabi was famed for playing the ghichak, a bowed lute, to accompany folk songs about the mountains that surrounded his home, which lies near the Panjshir Valley, the last bastion of resistance to
the Taliban takeover.
His murder follows comments by Taliban leaders last week that music was “un-Islamic”, and the southern province of Kandahar issued an order banning it today. Local officials also barred “female sounds” from all broadcasting, saying: “Hope be to avoid such activities.”…..
The order from Kandahar also confirms fears that women will be forced out of the media and off the airwaves, crushing a vital opportunity for educated, professional women that has flowered in the 20 years since the first Taliban regime was overthrown…..
The ban on music was trailed last week by Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman who is now touted as the information minister for the new administration. He said that “music is not allowed in Islam,” though he claimed a decision on a ban would be delayed until the government was officially formed.
The announcement from Kandahar has pre-empted that decision, however, telling all media outlets that “music and related programmes with female sounds” were banned.….
Taliban leaders have distanced themselves from the former regime since seizing Kabul for the second time.
The announcement from Kandahar will again raise suspicions that claims the Taliban has changed during its 20-year insurgency are just window dressing, made with an eye on their global audience as the new government appeals for international legitimacy and the return of foreign aid and investment for Afghanistan’s bankrupt economy……