130 Afghans have established a new musician’s organisation, the Afghanistan Music Foundation, with the objective of creating unification among musicians in the country – and to fight against music censorship and oppression of musicians   Text and video by Mik Aidt, journalist & Freemuse’s web editor Photos by Hafizullah Haidar, CSHRN …

Young TV music show presenter killed in Kabul On May 18, 2005, TV presenter Shaima Rezayee, 24, was shot in Kabul by unknown men. Her killing is possibly linked to her presenting of the music show ‘Hop’ on Tulo TV. Two months earlier, she had been dismissed from the show …

    Freemuse hosts a round table meeting in Amman which brings together a group of artists and organisers from the cultural scene of the nearby region   The meeting, held on April 1, 2005, was one of the first steps made by Freemuse to direct a sharpened focus towards …

  Najla worked as a belly dancer and singer in Egypt. She had taken a short vacation from Egypt and visited her homeland Tunisia, but was shocked upon her return that Cairo Airport Security would not let her enter the country The news of Najla’s banning from Egypt was a …

Egyptian authorities have initiated a crack down on music videos which feature females barely dressed. As popular female stars reveal more and more flesh, controversy grows in Egypt’s mainly Muslim society The Egyptian Censorship Committee has banned 20 music videos “which featured sexual connotations and females barely dressed”, stressing that even the words …

A musician from Turkey’s Laz minority group says the country’s public television has refused to allow him to perform his songs   The Laz musician Birol Topaloglu was refused to perform his songs in the Laz language because a tv producer claimed that new Turkish laws adopting democratic European standards exclude …

In Basra, Shia Islamic militias apply their own version of Islamic law, writes reporter for The Times of London, Catherine Philp   In the southern Iraqi city of Basra, dozens of men from a private militia poured into a local park where a group of students were having a picnic. The men were armed with …

Algerian musician and rai music rebel Rachid Taha has told BBC World Service that he believes Western radio stations are more restrictive in what music they play than their counterparts in the Middle East, because they refrain from airing political songs.   Algerian musician and rai rebel Rachid Taha has …

  Dr. Hamed was facilitator of the first national conference on music and censorship in Afghanistan, held in the capital Kabul in April 2005. In this 3-minutes interview he explains about the outcome of the conference. Dr. Hamed is a renowned poet in Afghanistan. Apart from being a doctor, he is also …

Two young boys had to play in secret because their music was banned by Pakistani fundamentalists. Now they are selling thousands of albums, and are popular among Pakistanis all over the world.   BBC News’ Haroon Rashid writes from Pakistan’s conservative North-West Frontier Province, Peshawar, about two young boys who …