3 May 2005
Afghanistan clerics plan Islamic TV
- By AFP
Kabul, May 3: Radical Afghan clerics on Tuesday unveiled plans to launch the country's first Islamic television channel since the fall of the fundamentalist Taliban regime more than three years ago.
A group of hardline religious scholars based in the capital, Kabul, said the station would counter what they say are immoral and un-Islamic programmes being broadcast by other channels.
"We plan to launch our own TV channel and through this channel we will broadcast Islamic programmes," said Qyamuddin Kashaf, a spokes-man for the Ulema Council, the group behind the plans.
Afghanistan has witnessed a rapid growth in television stations since the fall of the hardline Taliban in late 2001, which banned all cinemas and television during its 1994-96 rule.
The Taliban itself last month launched a pirate radio station operating from a secret mobile transmitter which broadcasts religious material as well as invective against the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
The clerics, who are not linked with the ousted regime, have not yet chosen the TV channel's name, but they said it would start transmitting in the near future.
The spokesman added that President Hamid Karzai had promised to help them but did not give an exact date or give details of how the station would be funded or operated. Mr Karzai's spokesman was not immediately available for comment. In addition to state-run TV, four television channels run by local warlords and private companies are operating in Afghanistan, and there are also several cable providers.
Most of the private stations run Western music videos and movies and have come under heavy criticism from conservatives, who call the programmes un-Islamic.
The cable operators have been shut and reopened several times under pressure from conservative groups. "We've said - not once, not twice, but dozens of times - that their programmes are against Islam," Mr Kashaf said. "They are not helping Afghan society. Our TV will help society with morality as well as healthy education."
Mr Kashaf said women would appear on screen, but under a full Islamic veil. Afghanistan's new Constitution, approved by a gathering of tribal chiefs and religious leaders in 2002, protects freedom of expression and a free media which includes TV stations.