The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) said on Tuesday that the Taliban's Office for the Promotion of Virtue in Nuristan province has officially banned taking pictures of a living person and publishing it in the province.
According to the centre, Nuristan is the sixth province to announce and implement this ban.
So far, the ban on the publication of live pictures has been officially announced in five provinces, including Kandahar, Takhar, Badghis, Helmand and Nangarhar.
The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) has expressed serious concern over the expansion of the restriction and warned of "negative consequences on the work of the media and people's access to information".
The centre said that the Nuristan Office for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice announced in a statement on Monday, January 6, that the order was communicated by Din Mohammad Mostaghni, the head of Nuristan’s Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Office, in the presence of the governor and other Taliban officials.
Mostaghni said that this order was issued based on Article 17 of the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and must be strictly observed.
According to the statement of the Afghanistan Journalists Centre in Nuristan province, in addition to the provincial representative of the National Radio and Television and the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, there are three private radio stations, Elena, Soleh Sahar, and Paron Ghag.
Local sources told the centre, "The national television does not have a local programme in Nuristan, and before the ban on the publication of live images was announced, its reports were broadcast through the national television in Kabul. In addition, video reports from the provincial section of Bakhtar News Agency were also sent to Kabul."
The report of the Afghanistan Journalists Centre states that after the publication of this order, the governor's office in Nuristan has no longer published pictures of living beings on the organisation's Facebook page and instead uses pictures of office buildings.
The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) said that although the ban has been officially announced only in Kandahar, Takhar, Badghis, Helmand, Nangarhar provinces, and recently Nuristan, the centre's findings show that the ban is spreading to other provinces and some local administrations are implementing it.
