Damascus : Brutal Islamic State (IS) jihadis have been shown to be mercilessly beating musicians in Syria for playing an electronic keyboard, which they hold to be un-Islamic, a media report said Tuesday.
According to the Daily Mail, the musicians were pictured being hit across the back and legs with a wooden stick in a public square after IS enforcers ruled that the electronic keyboard was “offensive to Muslims”.
Another picture showed two keyboards and what appeared to be a lute smashed to pieces after raids which were believed to have taken place in Bujaq, a few miles to the east of the Syrian city of Aleppo.
According to text posted along with the images on a file sharing website, the musicians were punished with 90 lashes along with a man caught impersonating a “hisbah”, which, in all likelihood and in the given context, referred to a local official or tribal elder.
According to the online post, which claimed to have originated from the IS information office in Aleppo, a man caught smuggling cigarettes was also punished with 50 lashes.
Since taking control of large parts of Syria and Iraq last year, the IS has taken to strictly enforcing the Sharia law within the area it controls. The militant group proclaimed a caliphate in its territories in Iraq and Syria.
Thieves were regularly pictured having their hands or arms amputated in public, while adulterers have been executed.
In another case of unrestrained IS brutalities, it was reported earlier Tuesday that at least 15 pigeon breeders in eastern Iraq were rounded up after the IS ruled that it distracted them from praising Allah (Almighty).
Three of those held by the group in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala have reportedly been killed, according to a security official.
On Monday, it was reported that 13 youngsters were killed in the Iraqi city of Mosul for watching an Asian Cup football match between Iraq and Jordan.
Activist group “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”, which operates out of Syria, reported that the teenagers were shot in public and their bodies have been left there as their parents are too afraid to go and get them.
The boys’ “crime” — breaking religious laws by watching football — was read out on a loudspeaker before their executions.
It came just days after the IS released a video showing two men being thrown off the top of a tower block in Syria’s Raqqa city for being gay.
A masked IS fighter announced the charges against the accused using a small handheld radio, before declaring them guilty of engaging in homosexual activities.
He said they should be punished by death, in accordance with the radical interpretation of the Sharia law by the IS.