KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban’s morality police have detained at least 10 people for playing music at two wedding ceremonies in eastern Laghman province, local sources told KabulNow.
Both incidents took place in Mehtarlam, the provincial capital, on Saturday night, August 9. In the first, Taliban forces raided a wedding in Mehtarlam’s first district, arresting six people. In the second, in Qarghayi district, they detained at least four young men during an engagement party.
Sources said the Taliban also seized music equipment during the raids.
Local Taliban authorities confirmed they had stopped music from being played at the weddings but declined to comment on the arrests.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed a nationwide ban on music at weddings and public events, claiming it “causes moral corruption.” Violators face arrests, fines and, in some cases, torture.
In a similar incident last year, a wedding in Badakhshan province turned violent when Taliban morality police stormed the event, injuring a teenage girl and an elderly man. The groom was fined 30,000 Afghanis (about $450).
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where music is banned. The Taliban enforced the same prohibition during their first rule in the late 1990s.
In the past four years, the Taliban authorities have seized and publicly burned thousands of musical instruments and banned broadcasters from airing music. Several TV and radio stations have been shut down for violating the ban.
Hundreds of musicians have fled the country since the takeover, while those who remain have abandoned their careers, facing harassment, detention and even death.
