Valentine's Day Banned in Pakistani City for Being Too 'Decadent'
A city in Pakistan has banned Valentine's Day after hardline religious groups decried the holiday as being too "decadent."
The village of Kohat, located in the country's north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, has prohibited local shops from selling Valentine's Day gifts and cards, although police have yet to enforce the ban.
The drastic move comes after conservative Islamic groups lobbied to have the holiday banned due to its "decadent" nature that they say may encourage eroticism.
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Kohat is located near Pakistan's tribal area, which is known for its conservative Muslim majority population.
As BBC News reports, Maulana Niaz Muhammad, district administrator for the city, says that the holiday was banned for fear it would encourage "obscene" behavior.
"Valentine's Day has no legal grounds, and secondly it is against our religion, therefore it was banned," Muhammad said.
The celebration of the February 14 holiday has been an issue for Pakistan before, with conservative Muslims arguing that the observance gives into western values of romance and sexualization.
While there have been calls to ban the festive day in cities like Islamabad and Karachi in the past, Kohat appears to be the first city following through with an official government ban on the celebration.
Two years ago, the conservative Jamaat-et-Islami political party paid to have billboards erected in Karachi that called on residents to "Say No to Valentine's Day."
Syed Askari, a spokesman for the group, told The Express Tribune that Muslims believe Valentine's Day goes against their values of marriage.
"Valentine's is against Islamic culture. In our view, relationships are sacred. We have arranged marriages in this culture and people don't get married for love," the political leader said, adding, "This is imposing Western values and cultures on an Islamic society."
According to the Hindustan Times, fights broke out in Karachi in 2015 when students with the Quran Academy, an Islamic seminary, began attacking young couples attending a public Valentine' Day party. The young activists separated men from women, destroyed decorations and interrupted entertainment.
Faisal Manusi, who serves as the nazim of the seminary, told the media outlet that the aggressive acts of the students were not supported by university officials.
"We do not encourage violence but this was too much for them to see and keep quiet," he said.
Despite protests from hardline Muslim groups, shop and restaurant owners in several cities argue that business is better than ever on February 14, owing the popularity of the holiday to younger Pakistani generations.
Along with Kohat, the town of Banda Aceh in Indonesia announced earlier this month that it was banning the romantic day due to its secular nature.
Illiza Saaduddin Djamal, the town's mayor, argued that the holiday should be banned because it has no connection to Islam.
"Our society and the Muslim youth should certainly not be celebrating non-Islamic holidays," the mayor said, according to Breitbart News. "The law says it is haram. The government is obliged to protect the public and younger generation from unlawful acts."
