The Taliban’s morality police recently summoned four young men in the city of Herat in western Afghanistan for a “rehabilitation programme”. Their offence: “imitating actors” and “promoting foreign culture”. The young men had formed what they called the “Thomas Shelby Group”, after Cillian Murphy’s character in the popular TV drama Peaky Blinders – and the week before their detention they’d been observed strolling confidently around Herat dressed in black three-piece suits and leather gloves, smoking cigarettes.
The Taliban are well known for actively policing what they refer to as “Afghan cultural and Islamic traditions”. And the morality police’s role is to ensure the “promotion of virtue and prevention of vice”, according to the Sharia, Islam’s legal code – as interpreted by the Taliban.
