Taliban Stole Freedom From Afghans, Says German Foreign Minister

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for this attack.

Earlier, a passenger vehicle ferrying employees of Taliban’s al-Farooq corps was the target of armed attack in Herat city.

On October 8 too, Taliban officials had announced that three people had been wounded in an explosion in Kabul. Khalid Zadran, the Taliban’s police spokesperson in Kabul, had said that the explosion occurred in the Diwanbegi area of district 5 of Kabul city. According to Zadran, a roadside IED exploded and hit a civilian vehicle.

On October 4 as well, at least two people had been injured in a roadside explosion in Bagh-e-Bala area of Kabul city. According to witnesses from the site of the explosion, a mine had been placed inside a flowerpot on the side of the street, which then, exploded and two pedestrians got injured.

The UN mission celebrated the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists and added that media in Afghanistan is in peril.

UNAMA urged all stakeholders to “help protect journalists and end impunity".

After the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021, the media sector and journalists in Afghanistan have been facing restrictions and threats from the Taliban.

Over the past year, many media outlets in Afghanistan have been closed or have stopped operations due to pressure from the Taliban. Kabul News TV is the latest such media outlet which announced suspension of its operations and broadcasts on Monday.

The Taliban have not discussed the matter so far.

Sources added that Dastgir has been active as an elder in Jabal Seraj district for five years and had never maintained political connections.

Dastgir also has been a Dutch citizen and it is said that he had recently returned to Afghanistan.

International rights groups have reported extensively on detentions, torture, and beating of civilians by the Taliban in the past year.

Most of these detentions have taken place in the provinces of Panjshir, Parwan, Takhar, and Baghlan. These are the strongholds of NRF forces in northern Afghanistan.

The German embassy in Kabul announced the suspension of its activities at a time when the country had recently announced that it accepts thousand Afghan citizens eligible for resettlement to Germany every month.

Under the new German government’s programme, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in Germany announced that the organisation accepts applications of Afghan journalists who are under threat in Afghanistan.

However, earlier this week, RSF had announced that due to a flood of applications from Afghanistan, the process had been temporarily stopped.

Khaksar added, “They asked me if you are a reporter. I replied in the affirmative. Later, one of them confirmed it and they immediately started to beat me up."

The Enikass TV reporter stressed that because of the physical assault he fell unconscious and when he regained consciousness, he realised that he was in the hospital. He said that the local people had transferred him to a hospital.

Khaksar told Afghanistan International that he has no personal enmity and that the reason for the attack was his profession, a journalist.

Local Taliban officials in Jalalabad city, the capital of Nangarhar province, have not commented on the beating up of the journalist.

In the past few months, a former female reporter and three other male reporters of the TV station had been beaten up in Jalalabad city.

In early 2021, a driver and four female journalists of Enikass TV had been killed in two armed attacks.