Reza Shahir, the former reporter of Rah-e-Farda TV, who had been detained by the Taliban on Saturday from the Herat-Kabul highway, has been released. Afghan journalist Rahman Mirzad said that the journalist had been released after two days in detention and under torture.
Shahir had returned from Iran and was on his way to Kabul when the Taliban forces detained him in the Shahjoy district of Zabul province.
In a statement, Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) asked the Taliban to release the journalist, but the Taliban in Zabul said that they were not aware of the detention of any journalists on the highway.
Reza Shahir, who had been detained and beaten up twice by the Taliban in Kabul in 2022, had fled to Iran with his family for external relocation to a safe country.
He had returned to Afghanistan due to his visa issues in Iran.
Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, arrests and threats against the journalists have been continuously reported. According to Afghanistan Journalists Center, 94 cases of arrest and torture of journalists were registered by the center in 2022.
Mortaza Behboudi, an Afghan-French journalist, has been imprisoned by the Taliban for the past few months.
