The Sound of Silence

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Taliban authorities said they had destroyed over 21,000 musical instruments over the past year, in a series of crackdowns on culture to impose its interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in Afghanistan, Voice of America reported.

At a press conference in Kabul on Tuesday, officials of the so-called Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice discussed the public burning of the instruments in the northern province of Parwan. They called on Afghans to refrain from playing music at celebrations.

The officials also announced they had destroyed thousands of copies of “immoral films,” without elaborating on which films were involved, and blocked thousands of personal computers from showing such movies.

The ministry said the crackdowns were part of “societal reforms” regarding audio, visual, and print media.

Vice and Virtue Minister Mohammad Khalid Hanafi said on Monday that the Taliban “are determined to implement Islamic Sharia and no one’s pressure is acceptable in this regard.”

Sharia is Islam’s traditional legal system, derived from the Quran and Prophet Muhammad’s sayings, which serves as moral guidance for Muslims. It has been applied, to greater and lesser extents, in Muslim countries around the world, the BBC explained.

The Taliban’s interpretation of it, nonetheless, has involved measures leading to “a climate of fear and intimidation” among Afghans, according to the United Nations’ mission in the country.

The mission identified the Vice and Virtue Ministry as the biggest violator of human rights, especially those of women.

Women’s rights have shrunk since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, with gender-based discrimination in workplaces, a ban on women working in some fields or being outside the home without a male relative, and a ban on schooling for girls after the sixth grade.