Censorship of musicians is increasing across the world. In December, in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, popular Pashto singer Sardar Yousafzai and 11 members of his orchestra were ambushed and shot at by an armed group, on their way home from a wedding performance. Five of the musicians were seriously injured, and the harmonium player Anwar Gul died. The attackers remain at large.
Gul was a victim of the Taliban’s violent campaign against musical expression. His son Naveed, who is also a musician, fears that no-one else in his family will now think of adopting music as a career. ‘My family is facing hard times these days. I don’t know how to survive in this suffocating environment. We are helpless,’ he says.
