January 22, 2003	Wednesday	Ziqa’ad 18, 1423

KABUL, Jan 21: Afghanistan’s supreme court on Tuesday imposed a nationwide ban on cable television, chief justice Mawlawi Fazel Hadi Shinwari said on Tuesday, throwing the country’s fledgling broadcast media into confusion.

The plug was instantly pulled on transmission in Kabul after Shinwari made the ruling on Monday in response to an appeal against a ban last month on cable television in Jalalabad.

However, senior government officials insisted broadcasts would be resumed shortly, once regulations governing networks were thrashed out.

Shinwari said cable broadcasts in several districts of the Afghan capital had offended religious leaders, prompting him to impose the ban.

“Mullahs and religious representatives in the district of Kabul have complained against the broadcast of pornographic and anti-Islamic films on cable TV channels,” he said.

“We are Afghans, we are Muslims, we have Islamic laws and values in our country.

“I have therefore sent official letters to the security officials and governor of Kabul asking for these cable channels to be banned.”

“It was our duty to take this decision, it is now up to the government to enforce it,” Shinwari stressed.

Last month the court banned the sole cable operator in Jalalabad, condemning the broadcast of foreign films as “totally against Islam and Afghan culture”.

Mohammad Humayun, director of Jalalabad’s Afghan Cable Centre, had sought a lifting of the ban, but on Monday Shinwari rejected his request.

“As a responsible official I cannot allow cable TV in any part of Afghanistan,” Shinwari told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).

Humayun told AIP he had been airing 20 news channels, including CNN, the BBC and the Qatar-based Arabic-language network Al Jazeera. His 18-hour-a-day service to an estimated 1,500 clients also carried Western and Indian movies.

Afghan Information Minister Makhdoom Raheen said cable networks would be permitted, providing they adhered to a code of self-censorship that has yet to be established.

“People can have cable TV if they observe the rules given to them by the government. Network owners should register with us and if they obey the rules, we won’t prohibit anyone from doing it.

“We will permit every channel that is not against our national interests or Islamic values.”

Hamid Rasteen, who operates a cable network in Kabul, said he had been told to halt broadcasts on Monday by police who gave him no reason for the stoppage.

He said although he had yet to be granted government permission for the transmissions, he was confident they would be allowed to resume with the blessing of the information ministry.

The latest restriction comes despite a pledge by Afghan President Hamid Karzai that his country would be able to enjoy an unfettered media.

It also follows a series of attacks on video and music shops by unidentified assailants in the deeply religious eastern province of Nangarhar. —AFP