Hamid Mohammadi: "My family is as famous as Lars Vilks"

Hamid Mohammadi came to Sweden in 2015. Now he goes to high school and works extra with a sculptor in Skåne Höganäs.

- To depict living people or animals is forbidden in Afghanistan, you absolutely cannot do that. It is taboo, it is haram, ”Hamid Mohammadi tells Culture News.

In Afghanistan, Hamid Mohammadi's family ran a well-known stonemason, but the operation became impossible after being subjected to violence and threats of further consequences if they did not stop mocking.

"My family is as well known in Afghanistan as Lars Vilks is in Sweden, although Lars Vilks has his bodyguards with him 24 hours, seven days a week because he lives in Sweden, one of the world's safest countries," says Hamid Mohammadi.

According to Mohammad Fazlhashemi, professor of Islamic theology at Uppsala University, the Taliban dislike visual arts for two reasons.

- Partly a theological explanation: that they believe that creation belongs exclusively to God. The second explanation is that they want to create an ideal society, says Mohammad Fazlhashemi, and take the example when the Taliban in 2001 blasted two 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues in Afghanistan because they perceived them as "Islamic".

- When, after 19 years of war against the United States and its allies, they have signed an agreement, they see themselves as victors. Then you can suspect that the same kind of restrictions will come back exactly when it comes to artists.

Hamid Mohammadi is now worried about being expelled from Sweden to Afghanistan.

After all, there are some artists and filmmakers working in Afghanistan, why couldn't you?

- There are no stone carvers or sculptors in Afghanistan, absolutely not. But there are directors, writers and journalists trying to show a different picture of society but they are targets for Taliban, says Hamid Mohammadi.