An Afghan province has lifted a ban on women performers on television and radio just days after imposing it, residents said on Thursday, following pressure by reformists in President Hamid Karzai's government.
The deputy provincial governor of Nangarhar, an area heavily patrolled by US-led troops hunting for Muslim militants and largely run by former anti-Soviet warriors, had announced the ban on Friday, declaring female performers un-Islamic.
But this week women were back on the air, residents said.
The issue of women performing on television and radio has divided moderates and conservative Islamist members of Karzai's government since the Taleban's fall.
Moderates have kept up pressure on conservative provinces to follow the new Afghan constitution that gives women equal rights.
A decision by Kabul Television in January to broadcast a female singer for the first time in more than a decade stirred protests from Islamists who briefly forced the station to stop airing such performances.
Moderates managed to lift that ban, saying women singers on television were in line with the new constitution.