Taliban Targets Entertainment In Pashewar

What is porn? In Pakistan a simple kiss can be considered pornography. What the residents thought of as family entertainment is now being targeted by the Taliban. It didn't use to be this way but that was before the Taliban came to Peshawar.

Not all of the Taliban came from Afghanistan but come they have. Pakistan's entertainment industry is suffering over the overzealous religious views. Video stores are bombed to "help" the owners to decide to leave their stores. Aziz ul-Haq is one such store owner. His store was bombed at 4 a.m. in the morning. No was was injured in the attack but Haq got the message behind it. His store won't reopen.

"If we do not close, someone will force us to close," says Haq. "They are powerful, we cannot resist." Haq admits that videos are unIslamic, but his rental business earned him $20 a day. "I can't earn so much in any other business, but, at least, now I am secure."

Girl schools and barber shops are among the businesses that have been threatened but no other business has had as many threats in Pakistan than the Pashto-language entertainment industry in the town of Peshawar. Refugee artists who fled Afghanistan came to this border town during the years of Taliban rule in their homeland. Pashtun pop culture's home became Peshawar. A movie industry rose up with low cost movies that the population ate up. There was violence and sexism but no sex in these low budget films that thousands of movie goers attended everyday. That was before the Taliban came to town. Now the production studios are underground. The video stores that sell them are bombed and those who worked in the industry are unemployed. For the past two months Ejaz Nayak, a 24-year-old actor has been unemployed. Nayak has been in 45 films in the past seven years.

"No one is doing any films any more. People are afraid. They won't go shooting on location now." Nayak grew up watching Indian action films, but acting in Pashto movies gave him a sense of pride in his own culture. That this industry should be targeted by militants that are also largely Pashtun leaves him confused. "No one was objecting to our films before, but since the Taliban emerged, everyone is criticizing us," he says.

Don't for to Pashawar if you're looking to become a wedding singer. Wedding parties are no longer hiring live entertainment for their celebrations. Music cassettes sales have fallen down as the Taliban shows their power.

"Our music sells in those shops," Ivan Shafiq, a music producer who used to play bass in a Pashto folk band says. "If all the retail outlets are closing down, the distributors and producers won't give contracts to make albums any more. And these artists don't know how to do anything else."

It was religious fervor that was the reason before the Afghan Taliban outlawing music and movies after they seized power in 1996. In Pakistan it seems to be a bit different. By using the entertainment business as their target the militants can use fear and reduce the other influences in the lives of their potential recruits. By eliminating every type of distraction could the Taliban be planning on brainwashing a city?