7 replies to this topic

[ShyOne]

Strange News - AP

Afghan City Closes Video Game Store
Tue Jul 15, 8:36 AM ET Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo!

By JANULLAH HASHIMZADA, Associated Press Writer

JALALABAD, Afhanistan - Authorities in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s eastern city of Jalalabad on Tuesday closed hundreds of shops where children played video games and watched movies, accusing the merchants of "corrupting the morals" of young people, a senior police official said.

"We closed more than 300 shops," said Haji Ajab Shah, chief of Jalalabad police. "People would gamble and drink alcohol in those video game shops" despite prohibitions under Islam, the dominant faith in Afghanistan, he said.

Police were acting on orders issued late Monday by Mohammed Asif Qazizada, deputy governor of Nangarhar province. He said he was reacting to complaints from parents that their children spent time and money in the shops instead of going to their schools, Shah said.

Many of the video game shops were in basements of newly built shopping centers in Jalalabad, the provincial capital. Besides playing video games, customers watch DVD movies for a fee.

"The morals of the young people were corrupted there," Shah said. "Many things were done there that are forbidden by Islam."

The governor of eastern Nangarhar province, Din Mohammed, appointed by President Hamid Karzai, is a deeply conservative Muslim who espouses many of the interpretations of Islam that the Taliban followed.

The shops also were shut in December last year in a similar crackdown ordered by Afghanistan's Supreme Court chief judge, Fazal Hadi Shinwari, an orthodox Muslim who wants Sharia or Islamic law enforced in Pakistan.

But they were allowed to reopen after promising to bar children under 16, Shah said.

Shinwari also ordered a ban on cable television for allegedly violating Islamic moral codes.

The hardline policies appealed to conservative elements in Afghanistan's post-Taliban government, which appears to be holding increasing sway.

Before it was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001, the radical Taliban militia banned television and other forms of entertainment such as music and movies.

[Nukey Shay]

Sounds like 1983 to me.
(yes, 1983...that's when the arcades in my hometown were forced out)

[Raijin Z]

I think the real source of their problems is their oppressive religion retarding their social evolution. Either that, or they're soulless videogame-playa haters.

[Starcade]

Wow, those fucking Iraq-ien bastards don't need videogames anyways.

[Ze_ro]

Frankly, I'm surprised that such a religious society allowed this in the first place. Seems like something they'd be against from the start.

... or maybe it was just too much Counterstrike...

--Zero

[Brad2600]

Starcade said:

Wow, those fucking Iraq-ien bastards don't need videogames anyways.

?

The only thing that's corrupted is how Islam can be mutated to represent something that it's not.

I bet video games are allowed in Iraq though.

[Ze_ro]

A friend of my brother's was teaching in Saudi Arabia for a while (He was working on an American/British air force base, teaching American/British children), and he had a fairly sizable PSX collection while he was there. When he came home, none of it worked here due to PAL/NTSC problems I believe.

I think video games are quite available in the middle east... however, I'd be willing to bet that over 95% are pirated.

--Zero

[chrisbid]

i remember back when the US played Iran in the World Cup, and they showed this arcade in Iran, where there were a bunch of kids playing Virtua Striker arcade units