The top photos of the week by AP photojournalists

Oct. 23 - 29, 2026

Students perform an evening prayer as they are blocked by riot police during a protest marking the second year since Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto took office, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)

A visitors walks up the stairs at the Kueppersmuehle Museum in Duisburg, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at Sioux Gateway Airport, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026, in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Mourners pray during the funeral of five members of the same family, including three children, killed in a Jordanian airstrike, which Jordan acknowledged had killed civilians, in Al-Tuff in southern Syria's Daraa province, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

A cyclist rides beneath autumn-colored plane trees at Lake Baldeney in Essen, Germany, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

A protester holds a French flag during a demonstration against rising living costs in Lyon, France, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

Emergency services work at the scene of a collision between two trains in Urda, Spain, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

People celebrate after Aleksandar Vucic, leader of the right-wing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) conceded defeat in the parliamentary election in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

Street vendors sit as they wait for customers to stop and buy cigarettes and coffee in Havana, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Joey Logano (22) flips after wrecking with Chase Briscoe (19) and involving multiple drivers in the tri-oval during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)

England's soccer player Harry Kane and Spain's Alexia Putellas win the player of the year trophy during the Ballon d'Or ceremony at the London Palladium Theatre in London, England, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026 . (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Palestinian men sit at a road, blocked in an effort to prevent Israeli settlers from entering the area, after settlers were spotted nearby in the West Bank town of Sinjil, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man surfs through floodwaters in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Healthcare workers help a patient who was cleared of Ebola virus inside a treatment center for Beni, North Kivu province, eastern Congo, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Sebastien Kitsa Musayi)

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is seeking reelection, wears glasses given to him by a supporter after voting in the presidential runoff in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Firefighters put out a fire in a residential neighbourhood following Russia's air attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)

Israeli soldiers take up positions during an army operation in the West Bank city of Hebron Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026. A day after a Palestinian shooting attack in the area. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Supporters surround Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado in Valencia, Venezuela, following her return to the country after months abroad, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, and Marseille Mayor Benoit Payan enter the city hall after it was vandalized, in Marseille, France, Monday, Oct. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)

Miami fans cheer during the first half of an NCAA college football game against Pittsburgh, Saturday, Oct. 24, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man holds his child as he casts his ballot at a school serving as a polling station during Israel's general election in Jerusalem, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Security forces and civil defense work after a multi-story building collapsed in Nairobi, Kenya, Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A member of the Greek navy stands in formation ahead of a military parade marking Ochi Day, commemorating Greece's defiance of Fascist Italy and entry into World War II, in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — There was a time when music would fill many of Kabul’s streets, wafting out of cafes and restaurants, seeping out of homes in the warren of alleys that make up the Afghan capital’s music district.

Those days are long gone.

Since 2022, playing or listening to music has been officially banned throughout Afghanistan. The Taliban who seized power in 2021 have prohibited anything but religious music — unaccompanied vocal chanting — with the ban enforced by the feared morality police of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

“Music is forbidden in Islam,” said ministry spokesperson Saif ul Islam Khyber, adding that it “serves as a means of joy to Satan,” and that it “often leads to various other vices.” No one, he said, "is permitted to listen to music or to record songs and musical compositions.”

Many musicians and performers fled the country after the takeover. Those who remained sent their instruments abroad or hid them to save them from being smashed by authorities.

The music shops in Kucha-e-Kharabat, the neighborhood in Kabul's old city where many musicians lived, now sell other wares, from food and groceries to clothes and household goods. Anything except musical instruments.

Across Afghanistan, musicians lost their livelihoods overnight.

Yet for many, music is in their blood. It has flowed through their families for generations, and the thought of never playing again is unbearable. Every so often, some pull out their instruments and play in secret. A knock at the door could mean danger. Still, they play.

In a small home tucked down a narrow street, a musician pulls out three hand-carved wooden rubabs, a traditional plucked lute-like instrument that is an integral part of Afghan musical culture. Picking one up, he cradles it in his lap for a moment before beginning to play.

The resonant, warm sound of the rubab fills the tiny room.

“As long as I am alive, I will continue to play,” he says. “Perhaps I will do so in secret, but I will not allow (the rubab) to be silent. This is our culture, the traditions of Afghanistan which must not be silent; they must be revived and I will fight for that.”

In another part of Kabul, a singer echoes the rubab player’s determination.

“For now, music may not be performed openly, but no one can ever erase it from our hearts,” the singer said. “Whether in secret or in our dreams, we will continue to sing and play our music.”

Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of arrest.

Before the takeover, the singer had performed at concerts and celebrations. He, too, has hidden his instruments: a rubab, a harmonium, a flute, a tabla — traditional Afghan hand drums — and a keyboard.

“The day I brought my musical instruments home and covered them with a tarp felt as if I had been buried alive beneath that very covering, as if I were dead,” he said. “Music gave me life; it brought me fame and recognition. Without music, an artist is like a soulless corpse.”

Sometimes, he stands before his hidden instruments and weeps. “I beg my instruments for forgiveness, explaining that I can no longer play them.”

The rubab player taught music at a school and also owned a traditional musical instrument shop. The son and grandson of musicians, the shop and music were his family business.

But after the takeover, he packed up as many of the instruments as he could and sent them abroad. Others, he hid. The music shop shut down.

Losing the business was a heavy blow. Not just financially, but also emotionally, especially for his father. A short while later, his father died of a heart attack. The musician believes the loss of the shop was something he never recovered from.

Between teaching and the shop, the musician made a very comfortable living, earning about 10,000 afghanis ($150) a day, he said. Now, he barely makes 100 afghanis ($1.50) as a manual laborer. With a wife and children to feed, he’s now desperately poor.

For his part, the singer spent two years unemployed before friends helped him start a small business.

When the music ban was first imposed, a few underground performances continued. Both the singer and the rubab player performed at some.

But now, it’s just too dangerous.

“The situation was becoming increasingly difficult day by day, and government agents were actively searching for individuals like me to arrest them,” the singer said. He hasn’t performed at a secret gathering for four years now. “The risk is simply too high, and I do not want to end up in prison. I have young children.”

The rubab player said a gathering he had performed at was raided by the vice and virtue police after one of those attending took photos and sent them to the authorities. Many participants were arrested, but he managed to slip away. He hasn’t performed at a secret gathering since.

The rubab player learned how to play from his father — an art form handed down through the generations.

Despite the dangers, he says he will start teaching his eldest son.

“It’s a legacy from my father, and I want this heritage to continue,” he said. “From my grandfather to my father, from my father to me, and from me to my son, and so on. This tradition must continue.”

For the singer, music is so enmeshed in Afghan culture and identity that he believes it can never truly be silenced.

“No one can ever truly separate music from Afghan society," he said. "They are as inseparable as the fingernail from the flesh.”

Rubabs, traditional stringed instruments belonging to a former music teacher who closed his family's instrument shop following the Taliban takeover in 2021, lean against a wall in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sunday, Oct.11, 2026.(AP Photo/Nava Jamshidi)

FILE - Red cloth covers a grand piano in a hookah bar in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

FILE - An Afghan musician poses for a portrait with his dilruba in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 18, 2021. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

FILE - An Afghan musician poses for a portrait with his rubab in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)

A musician who now works as a manual laborer after closing his family's instrument shop following the Taliban takeover in 2021 holds a rubab, a traditional stringed instrument, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026.(AP Photo/Nava Jamshidi)