WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 01, 2003
Videos, CDs burnt in Pak anti-obscenity drive
AP
PESHAWAR: Pakistani police began the new year on Wenesday by publicly burning over 5,000 videocassettes and compact discs in an ongoing anti-obscenity campaign in northwestern Pakistan, where conservative Islamic parties run the provincial government, officials said.
The materials, which included romantic movies that would not be considered pornographic in many Western countries, were collected during the past week, said provincial police chief Saeed Khan.
"This campaign will continue until we achieve the target of eliminating obscenity from the society," he told reporters in Peshawar, the provincial capital where the items were set on fire. He added that residents were "very happy" with the action.
Khan sprinkled gasoline over the piles of videocassettes and compact discs as hundreds of onlookers cheered. The burning took place at Jinnah Public Park, where radical Islamic groups staged rallies during election campaigning last year, promising to enforce laws based on Islamic teachings.
Police launched the anti-obscenity campaign a month ago on the orders of Akram Durrani, the new chief minister of the North West Frontier Province's government and an open sympathiser of the Taliban -- which banned most forms of entertainment before it was deposed in Afghanistan.
Last week, suspected Islamic militants destroyed four video shops in northwestern Pakistan with an anti-tank mine. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast in the village of Inayat, about 35 km from the Afghan border.
Since the Islamic bloc called Muthida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Forum came to power in northwestern Pakistan following October 10 elections, posters of scantily clad women have also been ripped down from theatres in Peshawar.
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