Marhama, 26, donned her mask as she prepares for a news bulletin at a private TV channel in Kabul. On screen, only her black eyes and eyebrows were visible as she delivered the news, her black mask covering the rest of her face. 

“I still believe it’s okay to be on screen with a mask,” Marhama told Asia Democracy Chronices after her news bulletin, “but we fear the rulers will ban our masked faces and voices as well.” 

Like the rest of the handful of women journalists still working in Afghanistan under the Taliban, Marhama has decided to accept all the restrictions imposed on them, which run the gamut. But Marhama – who, like the other Afghan journalists interviewed for this story, is using a pseudonym – said that they fear “further restrictions or a whole ban on women in journalism.” Or, for that matter, a ban on journalism itself. 

In 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the country was ranked 122 in the World Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Three years later, it is ranked 178, besting only Syria.

RSF summarized the media situation in Afghanistan after August 2021: “In the space of three months, 43 percent of Afghan media outlets disappeared. More than two-thirds of the 12,000 journalists in the country in 2021 have left the profession. Eight out of 10 women journalists have had to stop working.

“The few women journalists still working are subject to all kinds of restrictions (no access to official sources and no travelling without a chaperone, etc.) and abuse (harassment, very low or even non-existent salaries, etc.). The media face severe restrictions. Afghan TV and radio stations can no longer broadcast music, and women presenters must cover their faces.”

“When the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan and announced their government, we feared only their police and intelligence agency,” said Abdul Aziz, a journalist from Nangarhar, in eastern Afghanistan. “Now, our colleagues are being arrested and harassed by any ministry, whether it’s the Ministry of Interior, Defense, or the Vice and Virtue ministry.” 

Other journalists across Afghanistan echoed Aziz. They said that constant pressure and monitoring from authorities are impeding their ability to work professionally.  In effect, said the journalists, they are being banned from doing even routine journalistic work. 

Pressure from everywhere

Both male and female Afghan journalists reported harassment and arbitrary arrests by different ministries, as well as the Taliban’s intelligence agency. They said that they are now under pressure from all government departments and ministries. 

Indeed, it is telling that while a few journalists shared their stories with ADC, at least three journalists agreed to do so only with approval from the Taliban’s Ministry of Information. As one of them explained, “We were informed by officials that to speak with the media, we must first obtain permission from the Ministry of Information.” 

Many others did not agree to speak about their situation, fearing repercussions from authorities. Meanwhile, Abdullah, a local journalist in Kabul, told ADC that he and all his friends in media are only working so that they can feed their families. What they are doing is not really journalism, he said, as this is no longer possible under the Taliban. 

“All we are doing now is earning a meager salary just to survive and searching for a way out of Afghanistan.” said Abdullah. “Under the current rulers of Afghanistan, we believe that fair and brave journalism is simply not possible.”

In an article announcing the release last December of its 2023 annual report on media freedom in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) said that journalists and media professionals there had “encountered significant obstacles and infringements on their basic rights and legal protections throughout the year, severely limiting their freedom and capacity to function effectively.

“These restrictions and violations stem from at least 14 media directives,” AFJC added, “some of which were issued in 2023.”

According to AFJC, there were “at least 168 instances of violations of journalists’ rights in 2023, including one journalist death, 19 injuries, 87 threats, and 61 arrests.

“Though these numbers reflect a decrease compared to the 260 recorded incidents in 2022,” it said, “the nature and structure of the violations remain unchanged. The intensified pressure on media and journalists through the implementation of these guidelines has resulted in reduced freedom, compromised independence, increased self-censorship, and a shift in media coverage toward humanitarian and educational events.”

Blurred lines

Indications are the grip on media in Afghanistan is tightening even more. For women journalists, the lines between private and public life are even becoming blurred. 

In Kabul, several Afghan women journalists told ADC about being closely monitored on their personal social media pages by Taliban officials. Makai, for instance, revealed that she was followed by officials who instructed her not to share photos without masks on her social media pages. Recounted the 32-year-old: “I was shocked when an official called me and asked to remove my picture, which I had published on my account. When I asked the reason, he told me, ‘You are without a mask’.” 

Makai and her colleagues know only too well what can happen should authorities get too upset for any reason. As the world prepared to mark Press Freedom Day last May 3, journalists and media watchdogs in Afghanistan were busy working to secure the release of journalists who had been arrested. But just hours after Press Freedom Day ended, the Taliban government arrested journalist Neda Muhammad Noori in Parwan province in central Afghanistan. 

Noori, affiliated with the Taliban’s state-run TV RTA, was detained for three days before being released. According to some reports, authorities had detained him for “collaborating with media outlets in exile.” 

 In April, the authorities also arrested four journalists in the southeastern province of Khost. The reason: playing background music in their radio shows and accepting live calls from female listeners. The Afghanistan Journalists Safety Committee reported that all four were released after spending six days in custody. Local journalists in Khost said that the four were freed after promising they would no longer take calls from female listeners during their shows. 

Last February, the Taliban police in Khost wrote a letter to the Information Ministry, urging it to ban radio stations from accepting phone calls from girls during radio shows, citing concerns about potential immorality spreading in the province.

Said the Taliban police in the letter: “We kindly ask your esteemed ministry to stop media houses from engaging in activities that may lead to criminal incidents and moral corruption, in order to prevent such occurrences and reduce their incidence. Before we take action against media officials, it is hoped that your honorable department will intervene to stop these detrimental practices in the media.”  

A day after the arrests in Khost, Taliban intelligence in southern Ghazni province detained journalist Habib Rahman Taseer, who was affiliated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Taseer’s friends say that he was held in intelligence custody for almost 10 days before being transferred to prison in Ghazni. Two weeks later, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison over alleged insults to Islamic rituals.

Outsider “propaganda”

Taliban officials in Ghazni told ADC that Taseer had insulted Islamic rituals in voice notes exchanged with a friend on WhatsApp, leading to his prison sentence. But local journalists assert that he was arrested solely due to his professional affiliation with Radio Free Europe, which had been banned by the Taliban, who linked it to “U.S. propaganda.” 

Radio Free Europe is just one of the international broadcasters that have been banned by the Taliban. Afghan broadcasters have also been prohibited from rebroadcasting on local TV channels Deutsche Welle’s Afghan service, as well as Pashto, Persian, and Uzbek bulletins from the BBC. 

More recently, journalists and analysts were banned by the Taliban’s Media Complaints and Rights Violations Commission from cooperating or working with the London-based Afghanistan International, which offers TV and radio broadcasts. The Commission also called on Afghans to boycott the channel, which is said to be very popular in the country. 

In April, the Taliban suspended broadcasts by independent outfits Noor TV and Barya TV, reportedly for “not adhering to national and Islamic values.”

In an interview with ADC, Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said that no journalists have been arrested by the government within the context of their professional duties.

“Journalists in Afghanistan are no longer targeted for their professional duties,” he said. “Any arrests are based on individual crimes. Our government does not harass or arrest journalists for their journalism. Today, journalists can freely travel across the country, thanks to the return of peace in Afghanistan.”

Referring to how it was in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, Fitrat said, “During the occupation, numerous media organizations were active in Afghanistan, but they were not independent. They were operated by foreign intelligence agencies. After the occupation ended, these media houses closed their offices and relocated abroad.” ◉