The Taleban, whose violent ways are well-documented, has banned a widely popular video game for being too violent.
PUBG: Battlegrounds is also a “waste of time”, the religious fundamentalists reportedly added, which is arguably true.
Afghanistan news agency Khaama Press reported this week the Battle Royale-style game will be banned sometime in the next three months.
South Asia Index reported the given reason was “promoting violence”.
A Taleban spokesperson earlier this year said the game was causing young people to “go astray”, also namechecking Chinese video-scrolling app TikTok.
In the game, originally known as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, players are parachuted onto an island with the sole aim of being the last one standing.
The brutal and fundamentalist Taleban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and again from 2021 to the present. Their time in control in the 1990s was blighted by massacres of civilians, the UN has alleged, as well as deliberate starvation tactics and indiscriminate killing of civilians during battles.
When it retook control of the country in 2021, the Taleban promised it had changed – but recent reports by human rights groups suggest it hasn’t at all.
PUBG has previously run into trouble in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
The game has sold tens of millions of copies since its release in 2017, and is one of the biggest-selling of all-time.
