Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Afghanistan Supreme Court bans cable TV
Agence-France Presse Kabul, January 21
Afghanistan's Supreme Court has outlawed cable television across the country, Chief Justice Fazel Haji Shinwari said today.
Shinwari made the ruling in response to an appeal against a ban last month on cable television in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
"Mullahs and religious representatives in the district of Kabul have complained against the broadcast of pornographic and anti-Islamic films on cable TV channels," he said.
"We are Afghans, we are Muslims, we have Islamic laws and values in our country."
"I have therefore sent official letters to the security officials and governor of Kabul asking for these cable channels to be banned." "It was our duty to take this decision, it is now up to the government to enforce it," Shinwari stressed.
Cable television, carrying a dozen overseas television channels, has been operating in several neighbourhoods in the capital.
The court banned the sole cable operator in Jalalabad in mid-December, condemning the broadcast of foreign films as "totally against Islam and Afghan culture."
Mohammad Humayun, director of Jalalabad's Afghan Cable Centre, had sought a lifting of the ban but yesterday Shinwari rejected his request.
"As a responsible official I cannot allow cable TV in any part of Afghanistan," Shinwari told the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.
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