Kabul TV chief ignites row after banning women from singing on air

The new Afghan government of Hamid Karzai is trying to resolve a dispute after the head of the country's broadcasting service defied a request to step down for imposing a ban on women singing on television and radio.

The impasse has highlighted women's rights, an important issue in the post-Taliban administration, with increasing signs of a male backlash. Abdul Hafiz Mansoor, president of Kabul TV and radio, tore up the order of the Information Minister, Sayed Makhdoom Raheen, to leave his post and refused to move out of his office.

Mr Mansoor, who was, briefly, information minister after the fall of the Taliban, is said to have unilaterally taken the decision to bar women from singing on Kabul broadcasting, though they are allowed to do so even in more conservative areas such as Kandahar in the south.

The former mujaheddin fighter against the Russians is also believed to have been instrumental in filing a complaint of alleged blasphemy at the Supreme Court against the former women's affairs minister Sima Samar, who had become a symbol of Afghan female emancipation. The case was thrown out by a Kabul court as "spurious and vexatious".

Why Mr Raheen ordered Mr Mansoor's dismissal is unclear. But Mr Mansoor has made several controversial decisions, including the ban on women singing. The Taliban banned television as un-Islamic. Mr Mansoor noted that he returned women to on-air jobs when the new government resumed television broadcasts. "I didn't ban this," he said of women singing. "But Islam bans this. This is a matter for the country's supreme court. We are an Islamic society."

Mr Raheen has tried to take him away from the TV post before. "The government is trying to give him another post, most probably a higher one," a government official said. "But he is being as stubborn as before." Mr Mansoor said he had refused to obey the order because it did not come directly from Mr Karzai.

"I did not receive any orders from Karzai to step down, but if they come I will respect it, 100 per cent," he said. "I was on the front line fighting al-Qa'ida to enter Kabul. For 23 years, I was in the centre of wars and struggle ... And what did Raheen do? Nothing." Mr Mansoor is from the Northern Alliance, which claims to be more liberal than the Pashtun-supported former Taliban regime.

Some observers say his stance is embarrassing Alliance members of Mr Karzai's government. Others say the row has the tacit approval of Alliance leaders unhappy at losing seats in the government after the loya jirga.