After ban, TV, movies return to Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- After the Taliban's five-year ban on movies and TV, Kabul residents enjoyed an entertainment bonanza Monday: a war film packed a cinema and a petite young woman introduced the evening's television programs.

In a land where women have not been permitted to show their faces in public since 1996, Mariam Shekeba was live on the air, reading from handwritten scripts before and after taped programs on state-run television.

She spoke for barely two minutes, mostly to promote various events, and Kabul residents were delighted -- though hardly shocked. Women were a common sight on Afghan TV before the Taliban imposed their rigid interpretation of Islamic law.

"I was an announcer for children's programs before the Taliban," said Shekeba, her black hair partially covered with a forest green scarf. "For the past five years I've been sitting at home, doing nothing."

Television, which returned Sunday night, is on the air from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. only, and it's mostly a collection of children's programs and tedious shows about public health the television employees ferreted away in their homes during Taliban rule.

A few blocks away, at the Bakhtar Theater, young men lined up well before the 9 a.m. showing of "Ascension," a popular Afghan film about the guerrilla war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Entertainment-starved Kabulis filled all 750 seats, and 250 more were standing in the aisles.

"I've seen this film before, but that's not important," said Jawidullah, 17. "I just wanted to see the first film that was playing after all these years."