Free Republic

It took just 10 days from the passage of Afghanistan's new Constitution for the country's Supreme Court to violate the word and spirit of that hopeful document. Without any case before the court, and based on no existing law, the court declared on Jan. 14 that a performance by the Afghan pop singer Salma on Kabul television was un-Islamic and therefore illegal. "We are opposed to women singing and dancing as a whole and it has to be stopped," said the deputy chief justice, Fazl Ahmad Manawi. Even though state television has since flouted the injunction, the court's ruling underscores...