Taliban going door to door looking for government employees, taking down names/addresses, disarming people, taking them away, beating musicians, destroying instruments, etc. Taliban fighters beating musicians and destroying their instruments as they go door-to-door searching peoples’ homes in #Kabul, several residents told me. History repeating itself. Taliban banned music during its brutal former regime. —
Ariana: A well-known local comedian, Nazar Mohammad, who was known as Khasha Jawan, was gunned down on Tuesday, allegedly by the Taliban, in Kandahar, sparking widespread condemnation. According to sources, Khasha Jawan was assaulted by the militants before being killed. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: Ancient sites and artifacts are vulnerable to damage and trafficking due to the ongoing conflicts in various parts of the country, “especially in areas under Taliban influence,” said the acting minister of information and culture, Qasim Wafaeezada. He said most of these artifacts and sites are in Kandahar, Samangan and Balkh. Click here
Tolo News: Archeologists have discovered new relics that dates back to the Buddhist era in the Shewaki area in the eastern part of Kabul city. Eight small Buddhist stupas as well as fortifications, walls and 176 other artifacts have been found in Shewaki. Click here to read more (external link).
Los Angeles Times: The capital’s morning rush hour is a discordant backdrop for the workshop of Izzatullah Neamat. But walk down an alley, sidestep a sewage canal, and there he is: ensconced in the rabble among dozens of rubabs — an ancient instrument that resembles a lute — that have become his life’s work and
Tolo News: For the first time, a completely Afghan-made movie will compete in the Cannes Film Festival in France. The documentary film, named Kocha-e-Parindaha (Birds Street), was funded by Afghan Film and directed by Hizbullah Sultani. Click here to read more (external link).
Tehran Times: Tehran-based Afghan photographer Fatimah Hossaini has put the spotlight in her latest collection on the beauty of her homeland’s women that for years has been hidden under the rubble of war. The collection named “Beauty amid War” is currently on view in an exhibit at the Iranian Artists Forum in Tehran. Click here
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Seventy-year-old Haji Mirzaman laments as he fiddles with the wooden door on a beloved box camera he has used for 55 years. Just over a decade ago, he was one of dozens of photographers who still made a living in Kabul by shooting portraits with the primitive Afghan box camera, known
1TV: US authorities on Monday returned 33 antiquities valued approximately $1.8 million to Afghanistan. The antiquities were handed over to the Afghan ambassador by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the Department of Homeland Security. Click here to read more (external link).
A group of female artists in Afghanistan’s central province of Bamyan has recently opened a small pyrography and engraving studio to promote fine arts in the region. VOA’s Zafar Bamiyani has more from Bamyan in this report narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.