The Taliban killed an Afghan folk musician Aug. 29, days after stating that they would ban music from being played in public places. Fawad Andarabi was shot dead by Taliban fighters who arrived at his farm in the village of Kishnabad, Andarab district, in the southern part of Baghlan province. The district is near the Panjshir Valley that harbors a resistance force rejecting Taliban rule. Four days earlier, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told the New York Times: “Music is forbidden in Islam, but we’re hoping that we can persuade people not to do such things, instead of pressuring them.”
Andarabi played the ghichak, a bowed lute, and sang traditional songs about his birthplace and people. Former Interior Minister Masoud Andarabi (presumably no relation but from the same district) tweeted that the musician had recently sung that “our beautiful valley, land of our forefathers” would not submit to Taliban rule.
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, decried the killing. “There is mounting evidence that the Taliban of 2021 is the same as the intolerant, violent, repressive Taliban of 2001,” she tweeted. “20 years later. Nothing has changed on that front.” (PTI, Hindustan Times, Al Arabiya News, Meaww)
Afghanistan’s outspoken pop star, Aryana Sayeed, who fled Kabul as the city fell to the Taliban, is now speaking out from exile in New Delhi, saying she is “heartbroken” over the plight of all those left behind and “disappointed because Afghanistan has been let down by the world.” (NDTV, India, The News, Nigeria)
Photo via Digital Music News
