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" /> </div> </div> <div class="fa-header__info img-overlay"> <div class="container"> <div class="category js-category category--mb"> <a class="" href="/z/654">Afghanistan</a> </div> <h1 class="title pg-title pg-title--featured"> 'The Taliban Likes Facebook': Why The 'Photo Ban' In Afghanistan Won't Work </h1> <div class="m-t-md"> <div class="publishing-details "> <div class="published"> <span class="date" > <time pubdate="pubdate" datetime="2024-10-22T07:19:26+01:00"> October 22, 2024 07:19 CET </time> </span> </div> <div class="links links--inverted"> <ul class="links__list links_list--inverted"> <li class="links__item links__item--inverted"> By <a class="links__item-link" href="/author/amos-chapple/ob-yqp" title="Amos Chapple">Amos Chapple</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div></div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <span class="caption"> An Afghan boy examines a strip of film snatched from the flames of a bonfire lit by the Taliban to destroy cinema reels in Kabul in 1996. <span class="caption__credit">Photo: Reuters</span> </span> </div> <div class="fa-container fa-mobile-img-overlay"> <div class="category js-category category--mb"> <a class="" href="/z/654">Afghanistan</a> </div> <h1 class="title pg-title pg-title--featured"> 'The Taliban Likes Facebook': Why The 'Photo Ban' In Afghanistan Won't Work </h1> <div class="m-t-md"> <div class="publishing-details "> <div class="published"> <span class="date" > <time pubdate="pubdate" datetime="2024-10-22T07:19:26+01:00"> October 22, 2024 07:19 CET </time> </span> </div> <div class="links links--inverted"> <ul class="links__list links_list--inverted"> <li class="links__item links__item--inverted"> By <a class="links__item-link" href="/author/amos-chapple/ob-yqp" title="Amos Chapple">Amos Chapple</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container fa-share"> <div class="row fa-share pos-rel"> <div class="fa-share__col m-t-md article-share"> <div class="share--box"> <aside class="share 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readonly="readonly"> <button class="btn btn--rounded btn--ctc ctc__button" value="text" role="copy link" js-href="https://www.rferl.org/a/photo-ban-taliban-photographer-speaks-afghanistan/33167532.html" title="copy link"> <span class="ico ico-content-copy ico--rounded ico--s"></span> </button> </div> </li> <li class="share__item share__item--sharing-more"> <a title="More options" data-title-additional="Fewer options" class="btn btn--rounded btn--show-more hidden"> <span class="ico ico--rounded ico-ellipsis ico--s"></span> </a> </li> </ul> </aside> </div> </div> </div> <div class="links"> <p class="link-print visible-md visible-lg buttons p-0"> <button class="btn btn--link btn-print p-t-0" onclick="if (typeof FireAnalyticsTagEvent === 'function') {FireAnalyticsTagEvent({ on_page_event: 'print_story' });}return false" title="(CTRL+P)"> <span class="ico ico-print"></span> <span class="btn__text">Print</span> </button> </p> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container container--featured m-t-md"> <div id="article-content"> <div class="wsw"> <div class="fa-container"> <p>A photojournalist who worked in Afghanistan during the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule says the reinstated group's new <strong><a class="wsw__a" href="https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-ban-photos-videos-islam/33163962.html" target="_self">ban on images of living things</a></strong> is unfeasible today.</p> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <div class="wsw__embed"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="A boy in Kabul selling copies of a newspaper without imagery in October 1996" src="https://gdb.rferl.org/1bb27a3a-a938-4a51-971b-981bd8006296_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">A boy in Kabul selling copies of a newspaper without imagery in October 1996</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>In the 1990s, the Afghan photojournalist, who asked to remain anonymous due to his continued links to the country, recalls that “photos were completely prohibited. The Taliban banned it. Even if there was a press conference or something, they said, ‘You cannot take pictures.’”</p> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <div class="wsw__embed"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="A tower of destroyed televisions and VHS tapes seen in Kandahar in 1996 amid a ban on representations of living things under the Taliban" src="https://gdb.rferl.org/b398fbb2-fe98-439c-b1ad-358fe6cba006_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">A tower of destroyed televisions and VHS tapes seen in Kandahar in 1996 amid a ban on representations of living things under the Taliban</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>But during the first Taliban era, in which punishments could be severe for even minor transgressions, taking photos of people was still a regular, risky occurrence for the photojournalist, along with a small number of his fellow Afghans working for Western news agencies.</p> <p>“We had small cameras, and when we went to do stories we would just go somewhere where there was no more Taliban, and we would take one or two shots, then quickly leave," he says. "It was like a 'stolen picture.'"</p> </div> <div class="fa-container fa-container--jumbo"> <div class="wsw__embed wsw__embed--jumbo"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="A June 2002 photo shows Sabera Rahmani, director of Afghanistan’s National Gallery, with one of the more than 400 paintings destroyed by the Taliban during their original six-year reign." src="https://gdb.rferl.org/6ecee91d-90a0-4880-a58c-cf319a5e6589_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">A June 2002 photo shows Sabera Rahmani, director of Afghanistan’s National Gallery, with one of the more than 400 paintings destroyed by the Taliban during their original six-year reign.</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>During the first Taliban era, he says, the handful of local photojournalists “had to process our film using chemicals. It was very complicated.”</p> <p>Today, however, “everyone has a phone; it’s digital.”</p> <p>Additionally, the veteran photojournalist says, “The Taliban themselves like to see Facebook. They have WhatsApp It will be very, very difficult to stop it" since the new generation of Taliban "grew up with the Internet."</p> <p>The photographer says he was detained several times for taking photos during the Taliban's first rule. One of his colleagues was imprisoned overnight after photographing a man who turned out to be a foreign extremist from an Arab state who leaped up to detain the photographer and took him to the Taliban's "vice and virtue" police.</p> </div> <div class="fa-container fa-container--jumbo"> <div class="wsw__embed wsw__embed--jumbo"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="An Afghan boy looks at a pole strung with destroyed video and audio tapes in Kabul in 2001." src="https://gdb.rferl.org/b550a240-7606-4f06-8b26-c43d8b74037a_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">An Afghan boy looks at a pole strung with destroyed video and audio tapes in Kabul in 2001.</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>Some within the Taliban leadership apparently turned a blind eye to the ban on imagery showing living things during the 1990s.</p> <p>“My pictures were printed many times in a Pakistani newspaper, and the following day the newspaper would be sent from Pakistan to [the Pakistani Embassy in] Kabul,” the photojournalist says. "The Taliban could have called me and asked, ‘Why did you take a picture?’ But this never happened."</p> <p>But, he adds, “on the ground, it was absolutely not allowed to take photos.”</p> <p>For ordinary people, indulging in illicit entertainment through the 1990s was a commonplace, if nerve-wracking, experience.</p> <p>"People would watch TV and listen to music cassettes, but very secretly. They were sitting in the basement or somewhere and completely closing the window," he recalls.</p> </div> <div class="fa-container fa-container--jumbo"> <div class="wsw__embed wsw__embed--jumbo"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="A painter selling his work, which features a landscape devoid of people, in Kabul in 2005" src="https://gdb.rferl.org/147e2135-987f-4744-b559-bc4c90d6a9a5_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">A painter selling his work, which features a landscape devoid of people, in Kabul in 2005</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>The photojournalist says the second iteration of Taliban rule has been relatively lenient compared to the first, but "little by little, the smell -- the bad smell -- is returning," and referenced the <a class="wsw__a" href="https://amu.tv/130419/">recent shutdown of television stations</a> in northern Afghanistan for screening images of people.</p> <p>The Taliban leadership in the group's founding city of Kandahar is "very extremist," he says, though some have undoubtedly been changed by what they have seen of prosperity in the outside world -- something the Taliban's first generation of leadership never experienced.</p> </div> <div class="fa-container fa-container--jumbo"> <div class="wsw__embed wsw__embed--jumbo"> <figure class="media-image"> <div class="img-wrap"> <div class="thumb"> <img alt="A 1994 photo shows Afghans walking past buildings in Kabul ruined in the country's civil war." src="https://gdb.rferl.org/22df96f8-889a-455c-b77a-0c8821c788f8_w250_r0_s.jpg" /> </div> </div> <figcaption> <span class="caption">A 1994 photo shows Afghans walking past buildings in Kabul ruined in the country's civil war.</span> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <p>"These Taliban in the past few years have been in Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, India, and they have seen how beautiful the world outside Afghanistan is. When [Taliban founder] Mullah Omar took power [in 1996], they came straight from the madrasahs and took Kabul, but after the civil war it was completely destroyed -- no TVs, no nothing."</p> <p>This time, the photojournalist says, "the Taliban were handed a beautiful Kabul with construction, beautiful cars, restaurants, buildings. Everything is so superior to what the previous Taliban saw."</p> </div> </div> <div class="fa-container"> <ul> <li> <div class="c-author c-author--hlight"> <div class="media-block"> <a href="/author/amos-chapple/ob-yqp" class="img-wrap img-wrap--xs img-wrap--float img-wrap--t-spac"> <div class="thumb thumb1_1 rounded"> <noscript class="nojs-img"> <img src="https://gdb.rferl.org/01000000-0a00-0242-88ae-08dc16a2f407_w100_r5.png" alt="16x9 Image" class="avatar" /> </noscript> <img alt="16x9 Image" class="avatar" data-src="https://gdb.rferl.org/01000000-0a00-0242-88ae-08dc16a2f407_w66_r5.png" src="" /> </div> </a> <div class="c-author__content"> <h4 class="media-block__title media-block__title--author"> <a href="/author/amos-chapple/ob-yqp">Amos Chapple</a> </h4> <div class="wsw c-author__wsw"> <p>Amos Chapple is a New Zealand-born photographer and picture researcher with a particular interest in the former U.S.S.R.</p> </div> <div class="c-author__email"> <a href="mailto:ChappleA@rferl.org">ChappleA@rferl.org</a> </div> <div class="c-author__btns m-t-md"> <a class="btn btn-facebook btn--social" href="https://facebook.com/amoschapplephotography" title="LIKE"> <span class="ico ico-facebook"></span> <span class="btn__text">LIKE</span> </a> <a class="btn btn-rss btn--social" href="/api/aob-yqpl-vomx-tpepvqvqp" title="Subscribe via RSS"> <span class="ico ico-rss"></span> <span class="btn__text">Subscribe via RSS</span> </a> </div> </div> </div> </div> </li> </ul> </div> <a class="btn pos-abs p-0 lazy-scroll-load" data-ajax="true" data-ajax-mode="replace" data-ajax-update="#ymla-section" data-ajax-url="/part/section/5/7078" href="/p/7078.html" loadonce="true" title="More to read and watch..."></a> <div id="ymla-section" class="clear ymla-section"></div> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-12 col-md-12 col-lg-12"> <div class="slide-in-wg suspended" data-cookie-id="wgt-72508-3786434"> <div class="wg-hiding-area"> <span class="ico ico-arrow-right"></span> <div class="media-block-wrap"> <h2 class="section-head">Recommended</h2> <div class="row"> <ul> <li class="col-xs-12 col-sm-12 col-md-12 col-lg-12 mb-grid"> <div class="media-block "> <a href="/a/kremlin-putin-trump-european-troops-ukraine/33327524.html" class="img-wrap img-wrap--t-spac img-wrap--size-4 img-wrap--float" title="Kremlin Casts Doubt After Trump Says Putin OK With European Troops In Ukraine"> <div class="thumb thumb16_9"> <noscript class="nojs-img"> <img src="https://gdb.rferl.org/3c1c764a-9525-4f02-8a4f-9dd3d70171ef_cx13_cy19_cw83_w100_r1.jpg" alt="Four NATO troops take part in a military exercise in a field in Romania. 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