Pakistan:
Call for music centres to be closed

MMA's member of North-West Frontier Province Assembly Zakir Shah has called for a complete closure of music centres, cinemas and cable services and ban on video games and obscenity-oriented activities during the holy month of Ramzan

While addressing a press conference on 21 September 2006 at the Peshawar Press Club and accompanied by a number of Ulema from his constituency, the MPA said: "If cinemas and music centres can be closed in the month of Muharram then why not in the month of Ramzan?"

Zakir Shah also said that they had established a body 'Amar-Bil-Maroof Wa Nahi Anil Munkar' to warn people against un-Islamic activities. The organisation, he said, had been established some five months back, and Ulemas of 25 mosques in his constituency had extended their support.

MMA – Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal – is a coalition of six right-wing, religious and pro-Taliban parties which works for the total Islamisation of Pakistan under sharia law.

In August, hundreds of Muslims in Pakistan's north-western province set ablaze 20 television sets following a local mullah’s statement on radio that watching tv was a sin. Also, the influential cleric Abdullah Shah had decreed that tv was 'not allowed in Islam' after followers asked him for a ruling.