El Pais: With the return of the Taliban regime to power – following the chaotic American withdrawal in the summer of 2021 – many archaeologists fear a return to the days of the Taliban’s iconoclastic fury. The Taliban are also known to use the lucrative antiquities trade to finance their crimes. Click here to read
Al Jazeera: Sayed Muhammad Hussainy says it is his duty to help strengthen the voices of women living under the Taliban’s rule. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, thousands of Afghans fled the country fearing curbs on freedoms. Cartoonist Sayed Muhammad Hussainy was one of them. The 29-year-old artist, who has taken
ANI: Pakistani agents are robbing Afghanistan of its cultural heritage by smuggling ancient idols and other artifacts from the war-torn country, reported the Afghan Diaspora Network. The smuggling is done by a global racket of smugglers who are facilitated by local Afghan officials. Major support to the crime is provided by actors working from the
8am: Sources on Tuesday, September 20, speaking to Hasht-e Subh said that in a new move, the Taliban group removed the Persian signs of the departments of management, publications, information technology, procurement management, and several other departments and replaced them with Pashto and English signs. This is while 90% of the visitors to government offices
NPR: The last time the Taliban were in power, at the direction of then-leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, they smashed ancient statues and other objects in this museum that they deemed un-Islamic and idolatrous… “We used to show a film about the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas on that TV,” he says — adding that
Tolo News: Director of Afghan Film, Javid Afghan, said the organization does not have the budget to make feature films, and therefore the priority has gone to making documentaries and short films. “We have done a lot of work using limited means and a small budget, and we have some projects underway, we have screened
The Guardian (UK): Musicians had hoped to keep their art alive after fleeing Taliban but now face crackdown on refugees. Ajmal Haikalzada, 44, first became a refugee when his artist father left Afghanistan for Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s. In 2001, then a musician, he returned, singing and performing across the country
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal Abubakar Siddique June 3, 2022 PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Zaryali is among the hundreds of Afghan musicians who have fled to neighboring Pakistan since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. Soon after seizing power in August, the Taliban outlawed music and footage emerged of its fighters publicly beating and humiliating musicians and burning their instruments. The
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 29, 2022 U.S. cellist Yo-Yo Ma joined refugees from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music for a performance in Lisbon, Portugal, where the Afghan musicians have sought asylum. Ma joined young Afghan and Portuguese musicians for the performance of a Mozart piece on March 29 on a small stage at
8am: The mosque attributed to Imam Ali in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif used to host thousands of visitors from across the country each year during Nowruz festival. This year, however, no official ceremony took place in the city, as the Taliban opposed the New Year celebration, even calling the festival as not in line with