Taliban Has Intensified Torture Of Journalists, Repression Of Media, Says RSF

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement that the Taliban has intensified their repression of the media and the persecution of journalists.

The organisation called on the Taliban's Ministry of Information and Culture to end the "violation of the right to access information" in Afghanistan.

RSF on Friday (November 15) announced that the reopening of these media outlets was conditional on compliance with "repressive" rules, including not broadcasting music and not entertaining calls from women members of the audience.

"Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has brutally suppressed the Afghan media, stifled independent voices and plunged the country into a silence of fear," said Célia Mercier, head of RSF's South Asia unit.

The RSF official also described the Taliban's crackdown on the media as worrying and called on the group's officials to stop shutting down the media under various pretexts and respect the right to access information.

The Taliban has exerted enormous pressure on Afghanistan's local media in their efforts to enforce the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which considers women's voices to be "awrah" and bans the broadcast of images of living beings.

The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) reported last week that the Taliban had shut down three local radio stations in Khost province in a week for "playing music in the background of programmes" and "call from women" in social programmes.

The organisation later reported that the Taliban had reopened Radio Zhman and Radio Gharghasht in Khost after obtaining a written commitment not to play music and to abide by the group's restrictions.

Radio Lawang has remained inactive until now.