Banning the 'Daughter-in-Law'!

In an echo of the strict religious laws of the Taleban era, the Islamic Council of Scholars won the backing this week of a powerful government minister in its campaign to get dozens of wildly popular Bombay dramas of Afghanistan's television-screens.

The Minister of Information and Culture has written to television executives to threaten prosecution if they show footage that offends morality. He is particularly concerned about Indian soaps.

The dramas have won thousands of devotees in Afghanistan who enjoy the escapist world of the fictional Bombay rich. They have, however, offended the country's new moral-enforcers, who fear that the soaps will fuel a craze of "stone-worship".

Tolo TV shows three dramas, Story of Every House; Trials of Life; and Because a Mother-in-Law Was Once a Daughter-Law Too.

Saad Mohseni, the director of Tolo TV, said:"We have so many problems in this country - kidnapping, terrorism, inflation - so why is the Government making a deal about something which is pleasing to the eyes and ears of Afghans?"

Via The Times