Afghan Folk Singer Fawad Andarabi Shot Dead by Taliban
NEW DELHI, Aug 29: A Taliban gunman shot dead an Afghan folk singer in a restive mountain province under unclear circumstances, his family said on Sunday. The killing reignited concerns among activists and artists that the Taliban would return to their oppressive rules as it was 20 years ago.
The slaying of Fawad Andarabi comes as the United States winds down airlifting of people from Kabul’s international airport, the scene of much of the chaos that engulfed the Afghan capital since the Taliban took over two weeks ago.
The shooting on Friday of the folk singer came in the Andarabi Valley for which he was named, an area of Baghlan province some 100 kilometers north of Kabul. The valley had seen upheaval since the Taliban takeover, with some districts in the area coming under the control of militia fighters opposed to the Taliban rule, though the Taliban has claimed that they have retaken the areas but disputed the Resistance Force.
The Taliban previously came out to Andarabi’s home and searched it, even drinking tea with the musician, his son Jawad Andarabi said. But something changed on Friday
“He was innocent, a singer who only was entertaining people,” his son said. “They shot him in the head on the farm.”
His son said he wanted justice and that a local Taliban council promised to punish his father’s killer. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the media that the insurgents would investigate the incident, but had no other details on the killing.
Andarabi played the ghichak, a bowed lute, and sang traditional songs about his birthplace, his people and Afghanistan as a whole. A video online showed him at one performance, sitting on a rug with the mountains of home surrounding him as he sang.
“There is no country in the world like my homeland, a proud nation,” he sang. “Our beautiful valley, our great-grandparents’ homeland.”
Karima Bennoune, the United Nations special rapporteur on cultural rights, wrote on Twitter that she had “grave concern” over Andarabi’s killing. “We call on governments to demand the Taliban respect the #humanrights of #artists,” she wrote.
Agnes Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, similarly decried the killing. “There is mounting evidence that the Taliban of 2021 is the same as the intolerant, violent, repressive Taliban of 2001,” she wrote on Twitter. “20 years later. Nothing has changed on that front.”
(Manas Dasgupta)
