The Taliban has arrested four young men in Herat, Afghanistan, for dressing in outfits inspired by the British television series Peaky Blinders. According to local media reports, the group was detained by the Taliban’s morality police, who accused them of “promoting foreign culture” through their appearance.
Photos of the men, wearing long coats, flat caps and neatly styled outfits reminiscent of the Shelby family from the popular show, had recently gone viral on Afghan social media. Some users had even nicknamed them the “Jebrael Shelbys”, celebrating their creative fashion sense. The men later appeared in an interview on the YouTube channel Herat Mic, where they explained that they admired the show’s style and had received mostly positive reactions from people in the city. One member of the group said they also hoped to highlight traditional clothing from Afghanistan’s different ethnic communities.
However, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice rejected this explanation. Ministry spokesperson Saiful Islam Khyber said the young men’s appearance was inconsistent with “Islamic values and Afghan culture”. He also released a video showing one of the detainees expressing regret for his actions, a practice that has become increasingly common under Taliban rule.