SYDNEY, Oct 5, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - More than 100 music students and teachers

have fled Afghanistan in a nail-biting flight from Kabul following the
Taliban's takeover of the country, their institute's founder and principal
told AFP.

  Fearing a crackdown on music by the country's new leaders, a total 101
members of Afghanistan's top musical institute landed in Doha on Monday
evening, Ahmad Sarmast said.

  The group, about half of them women and girls, plan to fly to Portugal with
the support of the government there, said Sarmast, founder of the Afghanistan
National Institute of Music, who now lives in Melbourne.

  But the success of the operation was in doubt until the last moment, he
said.

  With help from the Qatari embassy in Kabul, the musicians had been ferried
in small groups to the city's airport, Sarmast said.

  In a first hurdle, Taliban militants manning Kabul airport questioned their
visas. But Qatari embassy officials managed to resolve the problem.

  Then the girls and women were told that they could not leave the country
with their temporary "service passports", which are usually issued to
officials.

  - 'Time of many tears' -

  "My understanding is that it was not so much of the type of the passports
but that the girls were fleeing the country," Sarmast said.

  Once again, Qatari officials managed to negotiate their passage.

  When the flight finally took off hours later with the musicians, including
many from the all-female Zohra orchestra, Sarmast said he was overcome with
emotion.

  "It was a time of many tears. I was crying endlessly. My family were crying
together with me. That was the happiest moment in my entire life," he said.

  The institute's founder said he had lived many memorable moments with his
students, who won standing ovations on international concert tours.

  "But the feeling and the happiness when I heard that their plane took off
the ground is very hard to describe."

  The flight was the result of long planning since the Taliban takeover,
Sarmast said.

  "From the moment the Taliban took power in Kabul the discrimination against
music and musicians began. The people of Afghanistan were silenced once
again," he said.

  The Taliban, who banned music outright during their brutal and oppressive
rule from 1996 to 2001, swept back into power on August 15.

  They have promised a more moderate brand of rule this time -- though they
have made clear that they will run Afghanistan within the restrictive limits
of their interpretation of sharia law.

  The movement's position on music is inconsistent and no clear order has yet
been issued.

  At a Taliban rally outside Kabul this weekend, for example, religious music
was played ahead of speeches by ministers and senior Taliban figures.

  - Told to stay at home -

  According to Sarmast, the Taliban have told the musical institute's members
to stay at home until further notice. Nearly two months later, they have not
been given any further information.

  The escape from Kabul was just the first phase, Sarmast said, vowing to
work until all 184 remaining faculty and students, past and present, were
evacuated and "reunited with the rest of the school".

  During a visit by AFP to the college in Kabul last month, there was no
sound of music.

  Instead, Taliban soldiers chatted and armed guards cradled Kalashnikovs in
the courtyard, shaded by trees with swirling treble clefs spray-painted on to
their trunks.