SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2004
Karzai defends women singers
REUTERS
KABUL : President Hamid Karzai argued on Saturday it should be left to his government to decide if women could sing on television, a controversy that has become an early test of Afghanistan 's new constitution.
In a setback for reformists, state-run Kabul Television reimposed this week a long-running ban on women singers, after the Supreme Court protested against its showing of a performance by Parasto, a popular woman singer who now lives in the West.
The Culture and Information Minister argued showing women singers on television was in line with the new Afghan constitution as it gives equal rights to women.
But the court, which is dominated by religious conservatives, protested that the ending of the ban was in conflict with the new constitution's provision that no law can conflict with Islam.
"Afghanistan has had women singing in the Afghan Radio and Television for now over 50-60 years," Karzai told reporters, when asked his view of the row.
"This is a policy that the ministry of information decides," he said, adding that Afghanistan needed to align itself with today's social environment.
The archive performance of Parasto showed her singing without a head scarf.
The ban on women singers had been in force for nearly 12 years since the Soviet-backed communist regime fell and a government of mujahideen, or holy warriors, grabbed power.
In 1996, the even more conservative Taliban overthrew the mujahideen and banned all television as part of its strict imposition of Sharia, or traditional Islamic law.
The controversy highlights a continuing battle between reformists and conservatives who oppose the liberalisation seen since the Taliban's overthrow by U.S.-led forces in 2001.
It comes weeks after the replacement of the conservative head of Kabul Radio and Television, a key official of the Northern Alliance faction that is the backbone of Karzai's government and is mainly composed of mujahideen groups.
Asked about Karzai's comments, Deputy Chief Justice Fazl Ahmad Manawi said, "We have nothing to say."
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