RASC News Agency: Reports from local sources in Ghazni indicate that the Taliban have closed a library in Jaghori district, confiscating Shi’a religious texts and Persian-language books. Sources confirmed on Wednesday, October 30, that a joint Taliban delegation comprising officials from intelligence, education, and the justice department shut down the “Islamic Revolution of Afghanistan” library in Jaghori’s central district.
According to reports, the library housed thousands of volumes on religion, culture, history, and society. The Taliban officials reportedly removed several Shi’a religious texts in what appears to be an intensifying campaign of suppression. Previously, the Taliban had banned the import of Ja’fari jurisprudence texts, and more recently, they imposed restrictions on the printing, sale, and distribution of hundreds of books in Kabul.
This pattern underscores the Taliban’s drive for ethnic and linguistic uniformity, an agenda that threatens Afghanistan’s historically diverse and pluralistic society. For generations, Afghanistan has been a nation of varied ethnicities, languages, religious practices, and cultural expressions. However, the Taliban are systematically targeting this plurality, pushing instead for a vision of Afghanistan that is uniformly Pashtun, where Pashto is the sole official language, and cultural and literary expressions solely celebrate Pashtun identity.
Under this narrow ideology, Afghanistan history and identity are filtered through a singular lens: what aligns with the Taliban’s vision is labeled as national interest, while everything outside of it is systematically erased.
