Another shining example of how enlightening and forward-thinking religion can be comes from Afghanistan, where the Taliban want to ban Indian soap operas.

Bad for morals, they say. Could encourage odd worship practices. Instead of watching television, people should go to mosques.

It’s all here in a Times story, which says TV executives are being threatened with prosecution if they show “footage that offends morality”. The executives have received a letter from the Afghan Minister for Information and Culture, who is particularly concerned about Indian soaps. His intervention comes after dozens of clerics met President Karzai a week or so ago demanding an end to shows that spread “immorality and an un-Islamic culture”.

Now soaps may not be everyone’s cup of tea – and certainly not that of your humble contributor, who sees them as the new opium of the masses along with much else that passes for television entertainment – but if they’re what people want and they’re doing no harm . . .

But there’s no accounting for religion – especially the nuttier varieties.

“Before turning their sights on Kabul’s buoyant new media world,” says The Times, “the scholars’ main campaign was to bring back public executions, last seen in the capital when the Taleban were in control. The battle to censor television is also a throwback to the days of Taleban rule when entertainment was banned and Kabulis had to watch smuggled videos in the secrecy of their own homes at the risk of jail.”

The story continues:

The campaign is also an illustration of the renewed grip Islamic fundamentalists have in Kabul six years after the Taleban’s fall from power.

New television stations have proliferated in the past three years, offering a mix of hard-hitting news, which is often critical of the Government, and light entertainment shows, which draw the wrath of religious hardliners.

The whole evil spread of this vile, evil stuff on that naughty, evil television is, according to one hardline, Koran-wielding would-be censor, “spreading immoralities and hurts the sacred religion of Islam”.

Aw, diddums!