Reporters Without Borders (RSF) – a Paris-based organisation – condemned the increased harassment of journalists in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime and it newly founded intelligence agency.
The RSF put out a statement in context of the recent arrests of two Afghanistan-based journalists, Aslam Hijab, a business reporter for the privately-owned Ariana News TV channel, and his colleague Waris Hassra on January 31. Both were taken away by intelligence officers to an unknown destination and were held for 48 hours before being released.
“These two cases of arbitrary arrest are far from isolated. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, at least 50 journalists and media workers have been detained briefly or arrested by the police or Istikhbarat. These arrests, which are often accompanied by violence, have lasted from several hours to nearly a week. They usually occur when journalists are covering street demonstrations by women in the capital, Kabul, and show the increasingly important role that the ‘Istikhbarat’ (intelligence service headed by Abolhag Wasiq) is playing in the harassment of the media,” the statement read.
“Threatening to rip out journalists’ tongues in order to prevent them from covering certain subjects is completely unacceptable,” said Reza Moini, the head of RSF’s Iran-Afghanistan desk.
“Journalists must be able to practice their profession without being under a permanent threat of arrest and torture. These unlawful threats, which violate Afghanistan’s media legislation, are all the more horrifying for coming at a time of growing harassment and increasingly restrictive rules for the right to news and information,” Moini said.
