The doors of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul are closed. The music school’s young students, teachers and faculty are staying home — they have reason to fear. According to founder and director Ahmad Sarmast, “armed people entered school property” recently. He says they tried to steal cars the school uses for transportation and destroyed musical instruments. Under the Taliban in the 1990s, music was strictly forbidden. Performing, selling or even listening to music at home could get you in trouble.
Sarmast, who spoke to NPR from Australia where he’s visiting family, is in constant contact with the school’s faculty. He says some students did not bring their instruments home, “because of the fear that if Taliban will be searching door to door, if the instruments will be found in the house, it might cause them some trouble.” When he reported the recent break-in, he says a policeman in the area, “blamed our security people for failure that they opened the gates of the school.
9Naija 