5 Afghan Journalists Disappear in 2022, Says Media Support Group

Speaking to Iranian journalist, Mohammad Hossein Jafarian, the NRF leader said that the cost of a watch or cloth of these critics could provide for the resistance fighters for a year.

Recently, Afghan political activists have criticised Ahmad Massoud for being inexperienced in military issues and that the forces under his command have been killed due to lack of ammunition.

However, in response to his critics, Massoud has said that in guerrilla warfare, the fighters cannot carry much ammunition. According to him, Andarabi had run out of ammunition after 30 hours of firefight and had been killed.

The media watchdog group has also emphasised that with the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan, the achievements of the last two decades in the field of freedom of expression in Afghanistan have been rapidly disappearing.

In 2022, the AFJC recorded at least 260 incidents of violations of the freedom of media and journalists, including threats, arrests, and violent encounters in Afghanistan. The group stressed that the figure shows an increase of about 138% as compared to 2021. The report added that with a few exceptions, the rest of the violations have been committed by the Taliban officials or the group’s members.

In 2021, AFJC had recorded at least 109 incidents, including death of eight journalists and media professionals, as well as the arrest and threats of journalists.

AFJC has stressed that among the detained journalists, at least three journalists and media workers, including Khalid Qaderi, a former presenter of Radio Nowruz in Herat, Faizullah Faizbakhsh, an independent journalist, and Qadratullah Tarar, a reporter for Zarghun TV in Khost, has been in Taliban custody since November 11, 2022.

In the last 12 months, the Afghan Journalists Center has recorded 128 cases of threats to journalists and media organisations.

AFJC’s findings show that the security apparatus, especially the Taliban's Intelligence directorate and the Ministry of Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue of the Taliban, have been directly and indirectly involved in the arrests, threats, suppression of media freedom, and freedom of speech in Afghanistan.

AFJC’s findings show that more than half of the active 600 media organisations including audio, video, print, and online ones, have been closed after the Taliban came to power in 2021, and hundreds of journalists and media workers have left the country, while women journalists have been marginalised.

The humanitarian organisation stated that irrespective of their status, children and families should not be behind bars.

It called on the country’s government to ensure that people should not be punished or criminalised for exercising their fundamental human right to seek asylum.

It also urged countries neighbouring Afghanistan, including Pakistan, to continue to protect those seeking safety.

UNHCR Pakistan while stating that states should suspend forcible returns of Afghan nationals and former habitual residents of Afghanistan until such time as the security, rule of law and human rights situation in Afghanistan has significantly improved, said that refugees should have access to safety.

This comes even as Amnesty International too had earlier expressed concerned regarding the safety of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Amnesty stated that due to lack of processes to regularise the stay of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the refugees are facing discrimination and are at risk of arrest and refoulement. Amnesty had also spoken about the detained protestors and urged the government of Pakistan to release them.

Apart from this, even the Taliban's foreign ministry had said that the Pakistani police have been ill-treating Afghan immigrants, especially in Sindh province. The Taliban's foreign ministry condemned the Pakistani police officials behaviour and urged Islamabad to take necessary measures to protect Afghans. It had been reported that over 1000 Afghans have been imprisoned in Pakistan's Sindh province.

In recent weeks, Pakistan has also imposed severe restrictions on Afghans who are without legal residence documents, in the country and set a deadline of December 31, 2022, for them to leave the country.

The gathering had been held after Kaaj, an educational center in Kabul, had been targeted by suicide attackers.

Iranian security forces had attacked the gathering held in Iran and detained a number of Afghan citizens.

Following the detention, 10 Afghan men and women and four children had been deported to Afghanistan.

After leaving Iran, deported Afghan citizens have informed how the security agents of Iran had tortured and insulted them in order to obtain a forced confession.

One of the detainees said that she was pregnant while being detained, but she had a miscarriage to fear and torture. She said that one of the male interrogators had been touching her inappropriately and forced her to sign papers.

Another Afghan citizen also said that the interrogators tried to force him to confess that he had connections with the leaders of the protests in Iran, using obscenities and insults.

He said that even though this gathering had been focused on the genocide of the Hazaras in Afghanistan, the interrogators told him that Afghan people in Iran have no right to any gathering or protest.

Another woman, who was among the detainees said that the interrogators insulted and sexually harassed her to such an extent that she was willing to sign "anything" to get out of the interrogation room.

These statements are made while in Iran, extensive reports have been published about the torture and sexual harassment of detained female protesters.

The sources told Afghanistan International that UNICEF has nearly 1,600 educational classes in Kandahar city and the province’s districts, which provide education to about 50,000 boys and girls.

In recent days, several educational centers, and teachers in different cities of Afghanistan said that the Taliban has ordered girls not to participate in classes.

On the other hand, the Taliban recently announced that women are not allowed to work in non-governmental organisations.

Following the Taliban’s orders and the ban on girls’ education and women’s work, several international aid agencies also announced that they have stopped their humanitarian operations in Afghanistan.

UNICEF's local office in Kandahar and its headquarters in Kabul have not reacted to the closure of educational centers in Kandahar.

Sources said that UNICEF has closed these educational centers in response to the Taliban's decision to ban women from working in non-governmental institutions. Sources said that most of the teachers at these educational centers in Kandahar have been women.