Afghan province bans female voices from radio
Religious authorities in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, have ordered state radio not to transmit female voices over the airwaves.
Yesterday December 10, 2008, the national radio of Ghazni province received an official letter written by Provincial Chief of Religious Affairs that demands to ban broadcasting any female voice in news, performance and talk show etc.
A blog called The New Afghanistan After Years of War says that the provincial government is under the control of Pashtuns, the same ethnic group that forms the Taliban power base, and suggests that this is another attempt by Pashtuns to impose their cultural and religious beliefs on others.
As a saying in Afghanistan has it, “all Pashtuns are not Taliban, but all Talibans are Pashtun.”
The majority of Ghazni residents are non-Pashtun, although the official authorities are Pashtun who keep the city under influence of Talibanization. These radical Pashtun hired by Karzai’s pro Pashtunist team.
The Taliban insurgency is historically a predominantly Pashtun movement, still have very little influence among other Afghanistan minority ethnic groups like the Tajiks, Uzbek and Hazaras. It’s hard to keep others from one who believes that gun is jewel of men. If nobody ends the culture of Pashtun warlordism, in 50 years the entire country will become Taliban.
The directive banning broadcast of female voices would appear to conflict with the new Afghan constitution that guarantees equal rights for women. Will the national government do anything about it?
h/t: Global Voices
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[...] AFGHAN PROVINCE bans female voices from radio …. [...]