Taliban detail reporters on TV program censorship report –

Sapai told The Associated Press that Sapai station legal advisers and Nafay Khaleeq were released within hours, but the station’s host, Bahram Aman, was still in custody on Friday.

The intelligence chief of the Taliban intelligence service (GDI) arrived on Thursday at 8 am to arrest the three people. Sapai said the station is still demanding Aman’s release.

Moby Group, the media company that owns TOLO TV, said the arrests were a “ban on foreign drama series for coverage of Tolo News” and a decision made by the Taliban’s Ministry of Virtues and Evil Prevention.

The Afghan-owned media company has interests in South and Central Asia as well as the Middle East and Africa.

Their arrests were followed by an international response, including broader calls from the United Nations and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) for the country’s rulers to stop harassing local journalists and crack down on freedom of expression through threats. , arrests and intimidation.

“The Taliban must immediately release reporter Bahram Aman, the news host for independent broadcaster TOLOnews, and stop detaining and intimidating members of the Afghan media,” the US-based CPJ said in a statement.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) made the same appeal.

“UNAMA is deeply concerned about the detention of journalists and the increasing restrictions on the media in Afghanistan,” the statement read. “It is time to end the Taliban strike and ban it. It is time to start a constructive dialogue with the Afghan media community ”.

Neither the Taliban Ministry of Information and Culture nor the intelligence agency responded to the PA’s request for comment.

The CPJ said in a statement that the Taliban denied the allegations.

Since returning to power last August, the Taliban have sent out unstable signals about what the media landscape will look like during their rule, with international journalists sometimes acclaimed and Afghan media often attacked.

Journalists in Afghanistan Decreased Significantly In the chaotic days of the US withdrawal last August, tens of thousands of Afghans fled or were evacuated by foreign governments and organizations. Many of those left behind, and even those who have not had conflicts with the new Taliban rulers, say they fear what might happen tomorrow.

Most of the journalists and producers of TOLONEnews are women, as Sapai, who was briefly detained, said she made a special effort to recruit and train Afghan journalists.

In December, Reporters Without Borders and the Afghanistan Independent Journalists Association found that 231 of the 543 news outlets had been closed and more than 6,400 journalists lost their jobs as a result of the Taliban scrutiny. The report said the exits were closed due to lack of resources or the departure of journalists from the country.

Source: Washington Post

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