Unclean
Things

As the Northern Alliance entered Herat, a city in Northern Afghanistan, the Taliban fled leaving behind in the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice a hardcover copy of a Taliban Penal Code, containing a list of "unclean things."

These included: "pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, any equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCR's, televisions, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogues, pictures, Christmas cards."

--- Amy Waldman
New York Times
22 November 2001
As quoted in Up Against the Wall Motherf**ker
Osha Neumann
© 2008, Seven Stories Press