Taliban Checkpoint: Drummer Strikes and Hakim Ebrahimi

taliban checkpoint: The four rockers that make up the band, known as Arikayn, are Afghan refugees, and their struggles mirror those of millions of other Afghans who have fled to Iran during decades of war, according to The Chronicle Herald. They once had to sneak through a Taliban checkpoint to pay a gig in their home country, and they face discrimination in Iran, but they say that hasn't stopped them from playing the music they love. A drummer strikes his snare four times and Hakim Ebrahimi opens with the first dreamy notes of Afghanistan, the sound of their Metallica-inspired rock ballad filling the air. This is very hard for all of us, but when we play a song, we become the person that we want to be, bassist Mohammad Rezai said. More than 3 million Afghans, including over 1 million who entered without legal permission, live in the Islamic Republic, according to United Nations estimates. Iran is home to one of the world's largest and most-protracted refugee crises. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.