Flash to the Past: Islamic Order à la Hekmatyar
posted: 24-03-2010 by: Thomas Ruttig
The following statement was broadcast by HIG’s radio Payyam-e Azadi (Message of Freedom) in Pashto on 9 December 1994.
Statement of the Military Command of Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan and Sepah-e Nur [Hezb’s military forces].
To the attention of all shop and restaurant owners and the noble population of Chahrasyab [a district capital in the South of Kabul province, seat of Hezb’e headquarters].
The following points that have been decreed so that the community complies to the principles of the holy religion of Islam have to be observed:
1. All shop, restaurant and business owners in Chahrasyab bazaar have to suspend business during the prayer times and have to attend prayers in the mosques.
2. Playing music in hotels, shops or cars is strictly prohibited.
3. The population has to refrain from the use of drugs like hashish and other intoxicating substances.
4. All Muslim sisters have to wear Islamic attire. They have to refrain from randomly walking around.
5. The population and all individuals living in areas controlled by Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan have to refrain from using 5,000 and 10,000 Afghan banknotes [issued by rival factions].
Those who violate the above-mentioned instructions will be severely punished.
Source: Amnesty International, Afghanistan-Info, January 1995 (in German), quoted in and translated from: Mahfel: Nachrichten aus West- und Mittelasien, No. 45 (2/95: March-April 1995), Berlin, p. 3.
A recent interview with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar can be watched here.