The latest: Violence against journalists has increased under the Taliban regime and at least 30 cases of violence against journalists has been recorded in less than three months, stated Nai on National Journalists’ Day.
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- Nai added that at least two journalists were killed and 16 others were injured in last week’s blast in Balkh.
- It stressed that media activity and pursuing journalism in Afghanistan is becoming difficult every day. “Many media outlets have closed their operations due to existing challenges and economic problems, and hundreds of journalists have become unemployed or left the country,” Nai added.
- In their statement, Nai said that journalists in Afghanistan grapple with many challenges.
- Nai called on the Taliban to “respect media activities and freedom of expression in Afghanistan and not let the freedom of expression be further damaged”.
- “The beginning of 2023 has been relatively challenging to the media, journalists, media activities and journalism,” Nai wrote.
Zoom out: Its important to note that Taliban has been implementing forced rules on journalists and curbing their work ever since they came to power in August 2021. In fact, journalists are afraid of doing their job due to the arbitrary detentions, missing cases of scribes and a threat to their lives.
- Apart from this, most media outlets and radio stations have shut shop because of the worsening financial conditions and extremely radical policies of the Taliban government.
- To top all this, there are also attacks against journalists by the ISIS. In fact, just a few days ago, ISIS targeted a function in Mazar-i-Sharif where journalists were being awarded, killing at least three and injuring more than 30.
