The Pakistani-Canadian rock group Falak has been blacklisted on MTV Pakistan
After having aired the music video for their song 'Yadein II' for a couple of months, the tv channel deemed it too controversial because of its images related to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Falak was supposed to open a park concert for some of Pakistan’s biggest acts in front of thousands in February 2007, but organisers abruptly cancelled the event after MTV decided not to air the video.
The news about the censorship has generated a good deal of media attention for this relatively unknown Toronto-based group.
The video shows flashbacks to flying lessons, farewell videos and letters, open maps, airport security screening and takeoff. The video ends with the famous pictures of a plane that crashes into the second World Trade Center tower in New York.
Rock star Salman Ahmad desribes his encounters with angry mullahs and oppressive dictators who wanted all music to be banned from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Five people were injured and 10 shops damaged in a bomb blast on 28 January 2010 in a music and video market in the small town of Jand in Pakistan's Punjab province
A concert with the exiled Pakistani singer Haroon Bacha on 9 December 2009 marks the start of 'Impossible Music Sessions' in New York showcasing banned music
Pakistan's performing artists face deadly occupational hazards. Lahore's music festival, and theatres across the city are bombed in co-ordinated overnight raids
"No doubt this is the most critical phase in the history of our province," writes journalist Shaheen Buneri about the situation for artists in north-western Pakistan
Musicians, singers, and other art performers are in panic. We are all at risk, Zeek Afridi, an up-and-coming singer fromm Peshawar, told correspondents of Radio Liberty
Ethnomusicologist John Baily and Freemuse executive director Marie Korpe speak about the Taliban’s campaign against music and musicians in Afghanistan and Pakistan
In Buner district a young man told that Taliban militants had shaved the heads and moustaches of him and three friends for listening to music in the evening of 25 April 2009
On 27 April 2009 the Lahore High Court imposed a ban on songs by two Lahore singers, deeming them 'indecent' and 'against the values of a Muslim society'
In an article published by Washington Post, Freemuse ambassador and singer Salman Ahmad and filmmaker Karam Pasha criticise the Taliban of hijacking Islam in Pakistan
Lima Sahar charmed her way into the third spot of the 2008 version of the wildly popular 'Afghan Star' competition. Now in exile, she fears for her life
The musicology department at Punjab University in Lahore has moved out of the university after a religious student group threatened with ‘dire consequences’
As the Taliban silence music in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, Freemuse ambassador Salman Ahmad denounces the Pakistani peace accord with the Taliban
On 15 December 2008, a group of musicians were attacked by armed men. Two days later at a hospital in Peshawar, the harmonium player Anwar Gul died from his wounds
