Musa Shahin, a local singer from the north-eastern Panjshir province, who has been held by the Taliban for more than two months now, has been “severely beaten” and is suffering from kidney illness with no access to medical doctor.
Shahin was under treatment for his kidney disease but he does not have access to a medical doctor in the Taliban custody, said Abdul Wahab Asim, his brother, who is currently residing in Iran.
The local singer, according to his relatives, was firstly detained by the Taliban in the Winter season of 2022 from the western Herat province while he wanted to flee to Iran. He was released a month later but the Taliban had torn out his passport.
On February 2023, the Taliban forces stormed his home in Khairkhana neighbourhood of the capital Kabul and arrested the singer for a second time.
The circumstances led to his arrest are still unknown.
His brother further said to KabulNow that the detainee’s mother and children were shocked by the Taliban’s raid on his home and his arrest, adding that they had all developed psychological problems after the incident.
According the singer’s relatives, the Taliban had moved the detainee to his home province of Panjshir but have again shifted him back to Kabul. Shahin is now being kept in the 40th directorate of the Taliban’s intelligence agency, they said.
One of his relative said that the Taliban had “severely beaten up” him and he had a “critical health condition”.
Shahin is known for his traditional songs, particularly for singing in Qarsak style which is a song genre native to Panjshir province.
The founder of Afghanistan National Institute of Music , Ahmad Naser Sarmast, has recently launched a Twitter campaign to call for his immediate release from the Taliban custody.
Recapturing Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has once again prohibited singing and listening to songs across the country as a practice deemed Haram according to the group’s interpretation of Islam. With the ban enforced, singers have been forced to either leave Afghanistan for a foreign country or stop singing under the Taliban.
