Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL publication that unpacks the vital points in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click on right here.
I am Abubakar Siddique, senior correspondent at RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. This is what I have been monitoring and what I am keeping track of within the days forward.
The Key Problem
Afghan journalists complain of rising restrictions amid mounting Taliban repression throughout the previous 12 months.
Journalists contained in the nation instructed RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that entry to info and censorship is tightening as they face torture, beatings, arrests, and threats.
“Freedom of expression faces grave challenges,” stated a journalist who requested anonymity. He added that the Taliban typically prevented them from publishing vital tales.
A lady journalist in western Afghanistan stated that the Taliban barred her from doing her job.
“It was the worst 12 months for journalists,” she instructed Radio Azadi. “I used to be repeatedly thrown out of press conferences simply because I’m a lady.”
The Taliban has banned ladies from exhibiting their faces on tv. It has additionally shut down radio stations run by ladies.
The Afghanistan Journalist Heart (AFJC), an Afghan media watchdog, has documented 168 instances of violence and intimidation in opposition to journalists. These embody situations of censorship, lack of entry to info, detentions, conviction, torture, and threats.
Afghanistan is now one of many seven most harmful international locations for journalists globally, in line with the worldwide media watchdog Reviews With out Borders.
In March, a bomb assault claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan, a Taliban rival, killed three journalists and injured 20 extra.
Why It is Essential: For the reason that Taliban’s return to energy in August 2021, press freedom has dramatically declined in Afghanistan. It flourished whereas the pro-western Afghan republic existed from 2001 to 2021.
Regardless of early Taliban guarantees to permit media freedom, its hard-line authorities has tortured, threatened, and detained scores of journalists.
The as soon as vibrant Afghan media was dramatically diminished after the Taliban closed unbiased print and digital media retailers. Tv and radio stations in addition to newspapers additionally shut down after dropping worldwide funding.
In draconian efforts to manage the free movement of knowledge, the Taliban has denied visas to overseas correspondents and banned some worldwide broadcasters.
A whole bunch of Afghan journalists went into exile after the Taliban’s return to energy. Many had been harassed or fled out of worry of persecution by the Taliban.
What’s Subsequent: The Taliban is shaping a media surroundings that solely serves its pursuits.
Even the unbiased media retailers nonetheless working inside Afghanistan are more and more unable to publish or broadcast something vital of the Taliban. On the identical time, the group seems to be decided to interchange journalism with propaganda.
With out entry to the nation, worldwide media too will discover it troublesome to do in-depth reporting about Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
What To Maintain An Eye On
The February 8 parliamentary elections in Pakistan look like beneath rising menace from Islamist militants alongside the nation’s western border with Afghanistan.
On January 3, former lawmaker Mohsin Dawar survived an assassination try in North Waziristan. He leads a secular Pashtun political celebration, the Nationwide Democratic Motion, which opposes the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban teams.
On the identical day, a candidate of the Islamist Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-), Qari Khairullah, survived a roadside bomb assault in Bajaur. North Waziristan and Bajaur are districts within the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.
These had been the newest within the rising variety of assaults on the February 8 parliamentary elections being held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the remainder of Pakistan. The area is bearing the brunt of assaults by Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) because the Taliban’s return to energy in Afghanistan. The TTP shares ideological and organizational ties with the Afghan Taliban.
Why It is Essential: The TTP’s marketing campaign has already poisoned Islamabad’s relationship with its erstwhile ally, the Taliban.
Since October, Pakistan has repeatedly shut border crossings with Afghanistan and expelled greater than half 1,000,000 Afghans to attempt to stress the Afghan Taliban.
Escalating assaults within the run-up to Pakistan’s parliamentary vote would derail a fragile diplomatic effort to fix ties between Islamabad and Kabul.
That is all from me for now. Do not forget to ship me any questions, feedback, or ideas that you’ve. You’ll be able to all the time attain us at azadi.english@rferl.org
Till subsequent time,
Abubakar Siddique
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