Pakistan:
Bus drivers threatened not to play music
An organisation called Mujahideen Bajaur has warned public transport drivers in Bajaur to stop the “un-Islamic act” of playing music in buses, reported The Dawn – Pakistan's most widely circulated English language newspaper
According to Mujahideen Bajaur, playing music in buses is an un-Islamic act which should be stopped. It's leaflets written in Pushto have been distributed in in many parts of the Bajaur agency, asking drivers of public transport to follow the order or “face the consequences”.
Bajaur agency is a hilly area located on the Pakistan-Afghan border, one of the regions which unconfirmed rumours say is a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.
Mujahideen Bajaur can be translated to something like "Holy Warriors of Bajaur", since “mujahideen” means “the warriors who carry out Jihad”.
Officials are quoted in The Dawn as saying that the political authorities have started investigation into the matter.
Previously, similar pamphlets have been distributed in Bajaur region, asking barbers to stop shaving and trimming beards in their shops, as both were "un-Islamic", reported The Dawn on 25 February 2007.
It will take a long time for Swat’s musical culture to recover from the Taliban’s crackdown on music, reported Shaheen Buneri from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In the sixteenth attack on Sufi shrines in two years, Taliban suicide bombers killed 49 and injured 93 Sufi devotees while they were doing music and meditation
The bombings of CD markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in beginning of February 2011 suggests that militants are again threatening the entertainment industry
On 26 November 2010, unidentified militants kidnapped Musharraf Bengash, a Pashtun singer from the Mir Ali area in North Waziristan. Later, a jirga negotiated his release
After a military operation against the religious extremists, artists are now returning back to Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, reported The Express Tribune.
A group of religious extremists threatened Asad Qazilbash, a renowned sarood player in Islamabad, to stop giving lessons and remove the signboard for his music school
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
