The Islamist group is anxious the sport could possibly be related to playing, which is prohibited underneath Afghanistan’s morality legal guidelines
Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities has banned the sport of chess throughout the nation, arguing that it’s incompatible with Islamic Sharia legal guidelines. The choice was introduced on Sunday.
“There are non secular issues concerning the game of chess,” the Taliban authorities’s sports activities directorate spokesman, Atal Mashwani, informed AFP, including that the sport is “thought-about a way of playing,” which was outlawed underneath the morality legal guidelines imposed by the Islamist group.
The sport will stay prohibited “till these issues are addressed,” the spokesman said. In accordance with Mashwani, the nationwide chess federation has not held any occasions for round two years anyway.
The Taliban returned to energy in Afghanistan in 2021, capitalizing on the withdrawal of US forces after their two-decade presence within the Central Asian nation. Upon taking energy, it restricted quite a lot of sports activities disciplines. Final 12 months, it banned combined martial arts (MMA) and different free combating championships, declaring them too “violent” and “problematic with respect to Sharia.”
The Taliban doesn’t view all sports activities negatively, although. In January, a Taliban delegation led by performing International Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi mentioned sports activities cooperation with India throughout talks in Dubai. Cricket, which could be very common in each international locations, featured within the negotiations, in accordance with New Delhi.
In February, the Washington Submit reported that Afghanistan’s common native sport of buzkashi was “thriving” underneath Taliban rule regardless of preliminary fears of a ban. The equestrian sport involving horse-mounted gamers making an attempt to direct a goat or a calf carcass right into a objective had been prohibited in the course of the Islamist group’s first stint in energy within the Nineties. Now, nonetheless, the sport reportedly commonly attracts audiences within the hundreds, together with Taliban members.
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