The General Directorate of the Invitation and Guidance (an independent body that determines religious policies within the interim government) said that cameramen are committing a major sin by shooting videos.

Speaking at a gathering of clerics of the directorate inside the Ministry of Education, Mohammad Hashim Shaheed Wror said that media workers have also been committed a sin by not growing their beards.

“You, media workers, grow your beards, stop shaving. Do not waste your time by taking pictures because it is a major sin. In the other world, Allah will order you to provide soul to your pictures, then you will be unable to,” said Mohammad Hashim Shaheed Wror, General Director of the Invitation and Guidance Directorate.

Mohammad Hashim Shaheed Wror said that growing beards is obligatory in Islam and that media workers should stop shaving their beards.

“Our Afghan friends from the media are continuously committing the sin. They [journalists] are also concentrated on vice. They are only making public those remarks of scholars which they think are bad before people and the world, they cut out the context and background of the remarks,” added Saheed Wror.

Earlier, local authorities in Kandahar province in a letter asked the local officials in the province to stop video recording of all formal and informal meetings.