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Afghan bloggers irritated by Iranian TV series

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Middle East & North Africa, Afghanistan, Iran, Arts & Culture, Ethnicity & Race, Humor, International Relations, Media & Journalism

The Afghan embassy in Iran has complained about an Iranian television series on Channel 3 [1], Char Khoone, that depicts Afghans characters as villains. Several Afghan and even Iranian bloggers have reacted to this news.

Dialogue 3, an Afghan blogger, says [2]:

Since the beginning of the summer Iranian TV has aired a series named Char Khonneh every night. Sehat Sroush , the series’ director does not have any filmmaking experience. At the beginning, this series did not have a large audience, but then the director created a new characters in order to make people laugh. Some of these characters are Afghans and their names are Shanbeh (means Saturday) and Charshanbeh (means Wendesday).

The blogger says Iranian TV insults Afghan people with cultural caricatures. Dialogue 3 says examples like Afghans who call their children by the name of days of week, creates hatred between Moslem countries rather than solidarity, and refers to an initiative by the Iranian authorities that names this the year of “Solidarity between Moslems”.

Heratblog says [3] [Fa] he/she is proud of being the first one who protested against this series. Debate on this issue has become a hot topic between Iran and Afghanistan. The blogger appreciates Iranians who have protested against this series too. The blogger says, Shanbeh, an Afghan character on the show who engages in a lot of trickery, speaks in an accent you cannot find in Afghanistan. The blogger adds that a suitable response would to Iranian TV would be to distribute the film 300 [4], which is insulting to Iranians, and air it on all 13 channels in Afghanistan.

Afghan Journalist says [5][Fa] insulting Afghans in Iranian media is not new, but that it has become worse since the Iranian government began mass expulsions of Afghan refugees. The blogger says it shows how dysfunctional Iranian TV is, where real creative people can not express themselves, and less talented people make programs by insulting other ethnicities.

Datum of Freedom,an Iranian blogger, says [6] [Fa], “I do not know why Shanbeh speaks with Afghan accent, it would be better if he spoke fluent Persian because his characteristics such as opportunism are Iranian not Afghan!”