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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Ashifa Kassam in Braga

‘The Taliban tried to silence us’: the musicians who escaped to Portugal

Ramiz Safa playing his rubab
Rafiz Safa: When the Taliban seized power ‘I took my rubab and ran’. Photograph: Gonçalo Fonseca/The Guardian

A stone’s throw from Portugal’s oldest cathedral and buzzing bakeries serving up pastéis de nata, the complex notes of a sitar fill the ground floor of an unassuming building in the northern city of Braga.

The soft strumming belies the radical nature of the mission that has taken root here: to preserve Afghan music and use it as a tool to counter those who want to eradicate it.

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