Hazara Nation

From earthtimes

Kabul - The Afghan version of "American Idol" show sparked a new round of controversy in Afghanistan, as thousands people participated in voting and millions of viewers watched it on TV, while conservative clerics condemned it as "un-Islamic."Around 300,000 people voted by text message for the two male finalists, while more than 10 million people watched the third season of "Afghan Star" show on Friday night on Tolo, the country's most popular TV channel.

Nineteen-year-old Rafi Nabzada, a Tajik from the northern province of Balkh, was declared the hottest new pop singer on Friday after the six-month show, a national contest held among some 2,000 contenders.

"Today I am very proud because I got this position by the votes of my beloved countrymen," said the boyish favourite Nabzada after being declared the winner.

Hamid Sakhizada, a 21-year-old from the Hazara ethnic minority, who trilled to Afghan traditional rhythms amid cheers and catcalls of music fans during the last competition, was gracious in defeat.

"Whether are from Bamyan or Kandahar, we are brothers," he said.

Both finalists received 8,000 dollars cash plus return-air-tickets to Dubai and India and contracts for recording deals.

Third place went to Pashtun contestant, Lema Sahar, a 20-year-old girl and the first female contender to finish third since the show was launched in 2005.

Sahar is from southern Kandahar province, the most conservative region in the country and the birthplace of Taliban militants, whose government was toppled in a US-led military invasion in late 2001.

During the six-year reign of the ultra-Islamic regime, women were forced to wear a head-to-toe veil and were not allowed to appear in public without male members of their families accompanying them.

The regime that claimed to have applied the "pure Islamic rules" also banned any type of visual broadcastings and music, the offenders of which were subjected to punishment that included whipping and imprisonment.

"I am proud to have reached to this position," Sahar told a press conference a day before the final show.

"I have been threatened, including several phone calls during the night," the shy-looking Sahar said. "But I don't lose my confidence, because I reached to the third position by the votes of my people and I know I will succeed in my decision."

Sahar was not the only girl in the show. Setara Hussainzada, a Tajik female contestant from western Herat province, who came eighth, was forced to flee from her home due to death threats after she was seen on the stage dancing during her performance last month.

Afghanistan had numerous singers and musicians including women, who fled the country en masse after communist-backed government collapsed in 1992 and was succeeded by the Taliban regime which came to power after 10 years of struggle against Soviet troops.

Six years after the Taliban regime's ousting, and amid international efforts to introduce democracy, conservative clerics condemn the TV show as "immoral." Hardliners have demanded that the show be banned, mainly objecting to the performances by women.

The national council of religious scholars sent a statement to President Hamid Karzai in early January demanding a ban of several "immoral and un-Islamic" TV programmes, singling out the Afghan Star.

The clerics charged that the show was "designed to encourage immorality" and was against the Afghan "custom and tradition."

However, show host Daud Sideqi rejected the Islamic conservatives' claims. "Music has always been part of our culture. Those, who oppose the show, they only do it because they have their own political purposes behind their opposition.

"If we look to the nearest Islamic countries around us like Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan, they all have singers, including women singers," Sideqi said. "We know after many difficult years, these things take time until the people accept them as the realities of our society."

A senior Afghan government official, who requested anonymity, meanwhile said, "The government has no objection against programmes like Afghan Star show.

"But we are worried that the extremist groups would use this as tool to show to the people in rural areas that we are encouraging these kinds of Westernized programmes, which they deem it as un- Islamic," he added.