Hamid Karzai orders ban on 'un-Islamic' shows on Afghan TV

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/25/hamid-karzai-afghan-tv

Hamid Karzai orders ban on 'un-Islamic' shows on Afghan TV

President issues vague decree after clerics complain that many stations air programmes that are 'counter to Islamic values'John Wendle in Kabul

• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 April 2013 10.04 EDT

A group of boys watch a Bollywood film through the window of a video rental shop in Kabul. Photograph: Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has heeded a call from a conservative clerical group to halt the broadcast of "un-Islamic" films and serials, issuing a vague decree that some see as a move to stifle debate before presidential elections next year or even to placate the Taliban.

The Ulema Council complained to Karzai that there were "many TV stations that turn to vulgarisms and broadcast immoral programmes, which are counter to national interests and Islamic values".

Karzai said in a statement: "The ministry of information and culture must prevent [television channels] from broadcasting programmes which are vulgar, obscene and un-Islamic and are counter to social morality."

Over the past decade Afghanistan has experienced a boom in communications, after television was banned during the Taliban's five years of rule. Encouraged and sometimes funded by western governments, there are now dozens of television channels operating in the country, with around 36 in Kabul alone.

Rafi Ferdous, a government spokesman, said the ministry would halt the broadcast of television shows and films that were "against our society's norms, values and Islamic fundamentals". But besides mentioning Bollywood films – known for their hip-shaking musical numbers – he was not specific about what exactly would be banned.

Anticipating anger from viewers and rights monitors, Ferdous emphasised that the government respected "the freedom of media and speech according to the instructions of the Afghan constitution in which social norms, values and religious fundamentals are the basic reasons to be respected by everyone".

But Abdul Mujeeb Khalvatgar, the head of Nai, an independent media watchdog and training centre, said: "I have seen the decree. It is vague and against the constitution and the law on the media. According to the suggestions of the Ulema Council, television should be careful about airing or broadcasting films or serials that are against – and this is the vague part – against the public ethics of Afghanistan and the sub-rules of Islam. But those sub-rules are different from one person to the next, from one sect to the next.

"It is my professional and personal opinion that they are trying to limit the free access of information before the presidential election," he said. It could also be an attempt to "make the Taliban happy, to pull them in for reconciliation", Khalvatgar added.