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Four young men were detained by Afghanistan's Taliban authorities and put into a rehabilitation program for walking around in public dressed up as their favorite characters from the hit British drama "Peaky Blinders."
The Taliban government's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said the four friends — who had become popular in their local Jibrail township, in the southern province of Herat, for strutting through the streets in trench coats and flat caps — were detained for "promoting foreign culture."
The men, all in their early 20s, were detained in Jibrail, according to Saif-ur-Islam Khyber, a spokesman for the government ministry.
"They were promoting foreign culture and imitating film actors in Herat, arrested, and a rehabilitation program started for them," Khyber said Sunday in a post on one of his social media accounts. "Praise be to Allah, we are Muslims and Afghans; we have our own religion, culture, and values. Through numerous sacrifices, we have protected this country from the spread of harmful cultures, and now we are also defending it."
Speaking with CBS News on Tuesday, however, Khyber said the men were not formally arrested, "only summoned and advised and released."
"We have our own religious and cultural values, and especially for clothing we have specific traditional styles," Khyber told CBS News on Tuesday. "The clothing they wore has no Afghan identity at all and does not match our culture. Secondly, their actions were an imitation of actors from a British movie. Our society is Muslim; if we are to follow or imitate someone, we should follow our righteous religious predecessors in good and lawful matters.
A screengrab from a video posted online by a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice shows four young men who were detained in Herat province for wearing "Peaky Blinders" style costumes in public.
The friends, Asghar Husinai, Jalil Yaqoobi, Ashore Akbari and Daud Rasa, who appeared recently on a local YouTuber's chat show, were often seen walking around in outfits modeled on the Netflix hit series' Shelby family.
Video and photos of them walking shoulder to shoulder in their costumes had circulated widely on social media in Afghanistan in the days before their arrests.
In the group interview posted online at the end of November by local YouTube channel Hirat Mic, the young men said they admired the show's fashion and had received overwhelmingly positive reactions from locals.
The Taliban government's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said the four friends — who had become popular in their local Jibrail township, in the southern province of Herat, for strutting through the streets in trench coats and flat caps — were detained for "promoting foreign culture."
The men, all in their early 20s, were detained in Jibrail, according to Saif-ur-Islam Khyber, a spokesman for the government ministry.
"They were promoting foreign culture and imitating film actors in Herat, arrested, and a rehabilitation program started for them," Khyber said Sunday in a post on one of his social media accounts. "Praise be to Allah, we are Muslims and Afghans; we have our own religion, culture, and values. Through numerous sacrifices, we have protected this country from the spread of harmful cultures, and now we are also defending it."
Speaking with CBS News on Tuesday, however, Khyber said the men were not formally arrested, "only summoned and advised and released."
"We have our own religious and cultural values, and especially for clothing we have specific traditional styles," Khyber told CBS News on Tuesday. "The clothing they wore has no Afghan identity at all and does not match our culture. Secondly, their actions were an imitation of actors from a British movie. Our society is Muslim; if we are to follow or imitate someone, we should follow our righteous religious predecessors in good and lawful matters.
The friends, Asghar Husinai, Jalil Yaqoobi, Ashore Akbari and Daud Rasa, who appeared recently on a local YouTuber's chat show, were often seen walking around in outfits modeled on the Netflix hit series' Shelby family.
Video and photos of them walking shoulder to shoulder in their costumes had circulated widely on social media in Afghanistan in the days before their arrests.
In the group interview posted online at the end of November by local YouTube channel Hirat Mic, the young men said they admired the show's fashion and had received overwhelmingly positive reactions from locals.
