Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have detained four young men for dressing up like characters from the popular Peaky Blinders TV show after they were seen wandering around their local township wearing long coats, flat caps, and sharp suits, according to multiple news reports. A spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice said the four men, all in their early 20s and based in Herat, were “summoned and advised and released” after being accused of “promoting foreign culture and imitating film actors,” and violating Afghan cultural norms. The Afghan group is known online as the “Jebrael Shelbys,” a nod to the Shelby family characters in Peaky Blinders. The men are understood to have undergone a “rehabilitation program,” CBS News reported. In a video circulated by the ministry, one of the detainees is heard expressing his regret. “I used to publish and spread things that were against Sharia... I was summoned and advised, and from today onward I will no longer engage in such sinful activities.” Videos of them walking together in costume were circulated widely on social media in Afghanistan before their arrests. The arrests reportedly come amid a crackdown by Afghanistan’s repressive Islamic extremist government, seeking to enforce strict dress codes and social rules, which lately also saw two street magicians detained for promoting “witchcraft.”
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