Taliban ban telly, if that makes any sense...

[BGonaSTICK]

Taliban insurgents have ordered residents of a province near the capital Kabul to stop watching television, saying the networks were showing un-Islamic programmes, officials and local media said today.  The order is the latest in a wave of curbs that the resurgent militants have announced in areas they are active.

A senior Afghan information ministry official, Najib Manelai, said that dozens of masked men with weapons entered mosques in Logar province at the weekend and threatened residents against watching television. ”They threatened the people that ‘if you do not give up watching television, you will face violence’,” Manelai told Reuters.

Media reports quoted residents as saying that the Taliban imposed the ban because TV networks were showing programmes that were “un-Islamic and anti-Afghan culture”.

The ban on television programmes in Logar follows demands in recent weeks by a group of religious scholars and the information minister that some private television stations must stop broadcasting several Indian soap operas on religious grounds. But the demand has been largely ignored.

Source: Reuters via Media Network Weblog

[RocketMBA]

But this is like banning an Englishman from going to London!