Afghan Taleban shave Pakistani players in shorts

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - The religious police of Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement arrested visiting Pakistani football players and shaved their heads because they were wearing shorts, Afghan and team officials said on Monday.

The players from the Pakistani border town of Chaman were released after Saturday's incident at a playground in the southern Afghan town of Kandahar, the Taleban headquarters.

The movement regards wearing shorts as a violation of its strict Islamic dress code.

A junior team of Chaman's Young Afghan Football Club had played two matches in Kandahar and was warming up for a third when the Taleban police took the players into custody as thousands of spectators watched, club manager Abdul Qayyum said.

"Their heads were shaven and (they were later) released," he said. "Five of our players managed to escape from the scene."

A Taleban Information Ministry official in Kandahar, Maulvi Hameed, said the action was taken because the players had violated the Taleban dress code under which male athletes must wear trousers while playing.

Qayyum said his club players were "quite annoyed" at the treatment they received in Kandahar. "Guests are not treated like this in our society."

A source at Pakistan's consulate in Kandahar said: "It's a common thing here."

The Taleban, which has vowed to create the world's purest Islamic state, has ordered women to wear an all-enveloping "burqa" veil while going out and men to grow long beards and wear "shalwar- kameez" (baggy trousers and long shirt) with their heads covered by a turban or cap.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000

Answers

These are the sort of nakkas the world would be well rid of. It's this sort of zealot crap that makes me despair of religion, and indirectly, humanity. Gormless bast*rds.

Been missing all day and there didn't seem to be enough controversy in what's been posted up to now.

I do feel better for that.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2000