Pakistan: Shaved as punishment for listening to music
In the district of Buner, just 100 kilometres from the capital Islamabad, a terrified young man told a reporter from Associated Press that Taliban militants had shaved the heads and moustaches of him and three friends for listening to music late in the evening of 25 April 2009.
“I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,” he told Associated Press over the phone, requesting not to be identified by name.
“The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again, ” he said. Local police said they had no information about the incident.
The victim told that it was ‘useless’ to lodge a complaint with police: “It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life.”
Hundreds of Taliban militants were recently reported to have pushed into the district of Buner, ambushing the government troops. Some sources state that 450 militants are presently based in Buner district.
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
