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CNN Live At Daybreak

Musicians Emerge from Taliban Music Ban

Aired December 14, 2001 - 06:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the Taliban are gone from Kabul, so are their rules that banned music and that means a trio of Afghan musicians are free, free from prison, free to play the music that once put them behind bars.

CNN's Jim Clancy has the story of three young men who played at a wedding and paid a high price.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM CLANCY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That band is called Awa (ph), it means "air." Their artistic talents, like those of so many others, were suffocated by the Taliban's ban on music. And if the Taliban didn't like music, it absolutely hated those who had the ability to make it.

Monsour (ph) tells the story of how last July the group decided to risk playing a few songs at a friend's wedding. The Taliban overheard. In a matter of minutes, a punishment squad beat the wedding guests, smashed all their instruments and hauled the musicians away.

(on camera): The three musicians were taken here, to the prison in the center of Kabul. Fearing they might spread their nefarious rhythms, the Taliban segregated the music makers from the rest of the prison population, the murderers, thieves, and television set owners.

(voice-over): Zarif (ph) returned with us to the prison and recounted how all three men where handcuffed and placed in cramped cells meant for the most dangerous criminals.

"We were kept over there," he told me, "in the back of the building."

The man in charge of the prison today said putting ordinary harmless people in small cells was bad enough, but then handcuffing hand and foot for most of the time amounted to human rights abuse.

With emotions swinging from old fears to fresh anger, Zarif showed us a building where the musicians were repeatedly hauled in for savage beatings. One session left him unconscious for hours. When the Taliban left, other prisoners destroyed the punishment rooms. The abuse by the Taliban was physical and psychological. "The Taliban threatened to hang my drums around my neck and blacken our faces and then put us in a pickup truck and parade us through the streets of Kabul as evildoers," said Zarif.

In all, he and the others spent some three months in this prison for their so-called crime.

They were released from prison after the September 11 attacks on the United States. The Taliban would soon be gone, but the nightmare of their experience is all the worse they say because, like so much the Taliban did in Afghanistan, it made no sense.

"The punishment was ridiculous" said one. "All this for playing music at a wedding." Another added, "We were imprisoned because of music, which is against international law, Islamic law, and human rights."

The distinctive drums, hand-pumped harmonia (ph) and keyboard have been replaced now. Replacing five lost years of practice won't be as easy, and it isn't over. Even when they play today, somehow they say they still fear the Taliban could come again.

It may not be the blues, but they've written down a few choice verses about their tormentors. The Taliban should beware. In Afghanistan, songs like these have a way of living on for generations.

Jim Clancy, CNN, Kabul, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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