KABUL — Taliban authorities in northern Afghanistan said Monday the group arrested 13 people for playing music in Takhar province.
The provincial police department said the arrests took place in Bangi district but gave no further details about those detained or their fate.
The latest move in the Taliban’s crackdown on cultural expression comes a few days after the group’s morality police detained a local singer in western Herat province. His whereabouts remain unknown, fueling concern about the treatment of artists under Taliban rule.
Since regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban have outlawed most forms of music, often seizing instruments and burning them in public. The ban is enforced by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which prohibits both performing and listening to music.
Human rights groups say the measures erase one of Afghanistan’s oldest cultural traditions and reflect the Taliban’s broader effort to impose their strict interpretation of Islamic law.
During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban also banned music, television and other forms of art, restrictions that have returned with the return of the group to power.
