Taliban Shut Down Afghan Radio Station Owned By Women For Playing Music

According to a Taliban spokesman, a women-run radio station in the north-east of Afghanistan has been shut down for playing music during the fasting month of Ramadan.

The only women-run station in Afghanistan is called Sadai Banowan, which means “women’s voice” in Dari. It was founded ten years ago. Six of the eight employees are female.

The station broadcasting songs and music during Ramadan broke the “rules and regulations of the Islamic Emirate” many times, according to Moezuddin Ahmadi, the director for information and culture in Badakhshan province, and was shut down as a result.

“If this radio station accepts the policy of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and gives a guarantee that it will not repeat such a thing, we will allow it to operate again,” he added.

Najia Sorosh, the station’s manager, denied any wrongdoing, claimed there was no reason for the closure, and labeled it a plot. We were informed by the Taliban that you had transmitted music. No music has been transmitted by us, she claimed.

According to Ms. Sorosh, representatives from the Vice and Virtue Directorate and the Ministry of Information and Culture shut down the station on Thursday morning.

She claimed that Vice and Virtue had been approached by station workers, but authorities claimed to be in the dark about the closure.

Immediately following the Taliban takeover in August 2021, several journalists lost their jobs. According to the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, media organizations shut down due to a lack of funding or because their staff members left the nation.

Women are not permitted to pursue most types of jobs or education beyond the sixth grade, including higher education, under the Taliban.

Music is not expressly forbidden. The Taliban outlawed the majority of the nation’s television, radio, and newspapers under its prior administration in the late 1990s.