AP: Students and faculty members from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music arrived with their families Monday in Portugal, where they are being granted asylum and where they hope to rebuild their acclaimed school. Click here to read more (external link).
NBC News: The last two of more than 270 students, faculty and staff from Afghanistan’s only music school have left the country in the wake of the Taliban takeover, the institution’s founder said on Thursday. “It was extremely emotional,” the Afghanistan National Institute of Music’s founder and director Ahmad Sarmast said of students he greeted
Tolo News: According to the musicians, music was the only way of income but as they have abandoned it for over two months and are currently facing severe economic challenges. “Any country that doesn’t have culture and national music will never develop,” said Asif Khalili, a musician. The musicians called on the [Taliban] government to
Ron Synovitz RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi October 13, 2021 Ahmad Gholami, a 25-year-old Afghan musician, had dedicated his life to the art of playing a sitar-like lute called the tanbur. But after nearly a decade mastering the instrument well enough to earn his living as a professional musician, the Taliban has banned music under its tribal
Seattle Times: The last time that the militant group ruled the country, in the late 1990s, it outright banned music. So far this time, the government set up by the Taliban hasn’t taken that step officially. But already, musicians are afraid a ban will come, and some Taliban fighters on the ground have started enforcing
Habibullah Shabab found his calling as a singer — but since the Taliban’s return to power, he’s given up performing and instead makes a living as a shopkeeper. The Taliban has not yet imposed a ban on music as it did in the 1990s, but Shabab and others fear such a policy is imminent,
Haroon Bacha Abubakar Siddique Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 29, 2021 Young musician Ahmad Khan says doomsday arrived for him when the hard-line Taliban movement overran the Afghan capital, Kabul — the conclusion of a dramatic sweep across the war-torn country that saw Afghanistan’s pro-Western government melt away. Khan — using a pseudonym for security
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty August 29 2021 The family of an Afghan folk singer and musician says he has been shot dead by a Taliban fighter in a mountain province north of Kabul. The alleged slaying of Fawad Andarabi comes amid growing concerns that the hard-line Islamist group will return war-torn Afghanistan to the repressive
NYT: Although he sought to convey a much more tolerant image of the Taliban, Mr. Mujahid did confirm one report: Music will not be allowed in public. “Music is forbidden in Islam,” he said, “but we’re hoping that we can persuade people not do such things, instead of pressuring them.” Click here to read more
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