Year later, Afghan media struggles to outlive: ‘no law, only restrictions’

Sadiqa Shirazi knew what the Taliban considered her journalism effectively earlier than their takeover of Afghanistan. From 2008, as Shirazi, then working a TV and radio station in Kunduz, focussed on tales about home violence, ladies’s rights and their training, she and her husband began getting loss of life threats. In 2015, in the course of the 5 temporary days that Taliban entered Kunduz, her tv and radio station was destroyed, and stripped of all tools.

Shirazi, who had fled to the Afghanistan capital on the time, determined to battle again. With funding assist from donors, and a principally ladies staff of 15, she restarted Roshani radio, broadcasting programmes from 6 am to 2 am, together with reside Q&As with listeners.

In 2021, Shirazi, her husband and eight-year-old daughter had already left for Kabul when the Taliban took over Kunduz. “They were calling my husband repeatedly, asking us to return, saying that they would not harm us,” she mentioned. But this time, Shirazi mentioned, she knew there was no going again.

“They always accused us of pushing an American agenda… There is no way to work as a journalist in Kunduz now,” Shirazi instructed The Indian Express from Canada, the place she is now attempting to begin life anew together with her household. Her feminine staff members have dispersed too, to Canada and Pakistan.

The handful of males who have been in Shirazi’s staff are nonetheless working the radio station. “They have to go by the Taliban agenda. They have only Islamic programmes now,” she mentioned.

According to a report by the International Federation of Journalists which companions with the Afghan National Journalists Union, within the speedy aftermath of the Taliban takeover, of 400 media organisations, over 160 have needed to shut down, of which practically 100 are radio stations. For these which can be open, the bottom guidelines of what can and can’t be broadcast are laid down by the brand new rulers. Two TV channels run by ladies for feminine audiences are amongst those who have shut down.

From 2003 to 2021, as Afghanistan tried to search out its democratic centre at the same time as international forces and Taliban fought for management, aside from the training of girls, the explosion of media was one of many extra noticeable achievements. Many ladies joined journalism because it was thought of respectable work.

Since final yr, with so many media homes now not useful, greater than 2,000 journalists are out of labor, 70 per cent of them ladies, based on surveys by journalist associations, amid draconian guidelines for ladies at work. Many of those ladies have been the one incomes members of their household. A focused assault in July 2021 in opposition to three ladies tv journalists, killing them on the spot, set the stage for ladies to stop their jobs en masse when the Taliban took over in August.

There have been 120 detentions of journalists, 48 of them in Kabul alone. Newspapers are now not printed and have all gone on-line.

“Afghans have no access to information on their own. We are mostly following our news through western media,” mentioned a journalist. “The national media is doing self-censorship and the Taliban are monitoring everything.”

He mentioned that beneath the Constitution that was in operation till the Taliban took over, there was freedom of speech. “Based on that, there was a media law, and our own access to information law, and an oversight body to monitor access to information. It was the best in this region. But the Taliban scrapped all that as soon as they came. Now there is no law. Only a lot of restrictions,” the journalist mentioned.

Hundreds of journalists have fled to neighbouring Pakistan, hoping to get a visa to any third nation from there, as most embassies in Kabul are nonetheless shut.

Tolo News of the Moby group, Afghanistan’s most well-known channel, is likely one of the few media organisations that has stayed afloat. Khpolwak Sapai, director of the channel, mentioned it had not been stopped from doing any tales.

“The Taliban have said they support free media with some conditions, such as not to do any stories against Islamic values, or national values. These can have wide interpretations, and it is creating a lot of confusion. We have conveyed to them that we need to have a media law, otherwise it will be difficult to define the boundaries,” mentioned Sapai.

On the day of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2021, Sapai recalled that he had no anchors within the studio by 4 pm as everybody had left in panic. For many of the day, the TV channel put out repackaged variations of yesterday’s information.

“Around 3 pm, we learnt (President) Ashraf Ghani had left the country. I had to be every careful with my editorial decision because of the panic that had already taken over Kabul due to the presence of Taliban in the western part of the city, and the fear of armed criminals in Kabul,” mentioned Sapai, who studied journalism in Kabul University within the Sixties, and described the final 20 years as one of the best years for journalism in Afghanistan.

A male presenter lastly agreed to return to workplace, and the station broke the information that the President had fled. The channel bought Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid to talk reside and reassure the people who it might be a peaceable transition and no legal components could be allowed to benefit from the confusion.

But over the subsequent few days, Tolo misplaced 90 per cent of its workers as each female and male workers stop, a few of them to go overseas, some as a result of their members of the family didn’t enable them to go away dwelling. “As the only person here, I had to keep the channel on, and I had to hire new colleagues,” he mentioned.

It was a chance to inject recent blood, Sapai mentioned. The channel has recruited extra ladies than it had earlier. It has 20 provincial correspondents, of whom eight are ladies, and 20 ladies in Kabul, working as reporters, presenters and camerapersons.

Looking again, Sapai mentioned the primary few weeks beneath the Taliban have been maybe simpler. One Taliban spokesman even agreed to go on tv with girl presenter Beheshta Arghand, which Sapai mentioned had made him hopeful. The picture made waves internationally. But then the Taliban imposed a strict costume code, together with a face cowl for ladies presenters. For just a few days, Tolo’s male presenters additionally wore a face masks on air as a mark of protest.

Waheeda Hassan, a reporter on the information channel who was employed in Tolo’s latest recruitment drive, mentioned she works to be able to inspire different ladies to do the identical. “The Taliban want to remove women from society. Going on television is a way to give the message that Afghan women still exist, and to give women the confidence that they can also come out of their homes,” Hassan mentioned.

Still, mentioned Hassan, life had turn into unpredictable beneath the Taliban, particularly for ladies. Being a journalist who must be out and about, was to run the gauntlet on daily basis.

“We don’t know what firmaan they are going to come up with next. If you are by yourself in a car, they ask where’s your mehram? If you are with a male colleague, how are you related to him? Each day, a different rule. One day, they might say a woman’s voice is not halal,” mentioned Hassan.

“My family tells me it’s a dangerous job, they don’t want me to do this. But who will raise a voice for women if all women stay at home and become silent,” she mentioned.

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At a provincial radio station, an revolutionary younger broadcaster, who didn’t wish to be recognized, mentioned she had discovered a approach to discuss ladies’s rights by invoking faith originally of every programme.

Despite the fightback, the senior journalist mentioned Afghan journalism was now affected by a triple whammy — monetary insecurity, bodily safety, and lack of capability. “Many of the leaders in Afghan journalism have left the country. Those who are left behind are in panic, and are feeling demotivated,” he mentioned.