New York, October 28, 2024—On October 13, the Taliban banned television operations and the filming and photographing of people in public spaces in northeast Takhar province according to a local journalist who spoke to the Committee to Protect Journalists under the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal from the Taliban, and media reports.
“The Taliban’s latest ban on television and filming and photography in Takhar should trouble anyone who cares about media freedom worldwide” said CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “The citizens of Afghanistan deserve fundamental rights, and the international community must cease its passive observation of the country’s rapid regression.”
The ban was approved by senior officials from the Taliban’s provincial General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), directorates of Information and Culture, and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as well as the governor’s office of Takhar province.
Takhar is the second province in Afghanistan to institute such a ban. Previously, the Taliban implemented a similar ban in Kandahar province, its unofficial capital and the residence of the group’s leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, according to a Kandahar-based journalist who also spoke to CPJ under the condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban retaliation.
Saif ul Islam Khyber, a spokesman for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, confirmed to the Associated Press that media outlets in the provinces of Takhar, Maidan Wardak, and Kandahar had been “advised not to broadcast or display images of anything possessing a soul—meaning humans and animals,” according to the AP. Khyber said the directive is part of the implementation of a recently ratified morality law.
Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada signed the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice bill into law on July 31, though the news was not made public until August 21, when it was published on the Ministry of Justice’s website.
Article 17 of the law details the restrictions on the media, including a ban on publishing or broadcasting images of living people and animals, which the Taliban regards as un-Islamic. Other sections order women to cover their bodies and faces and travel with a male guardian, while men are not allowed to shave their beards. The punishment for breaking the law is up to three days in prison or a penalty “considered appropriate by the public prosecutor.”
On October 14, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, the director of Taliban-controlled Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), informed senior management of Kabul’s national TV station that a phased strategy to implement the new law had already begun. TV stations across Afghanistan’s provinces will be gradually closed and converted to radio stations, with plans to eventually extend the ban to Kabul, where RTA and other major national broadcasters operate, according to two journalists familiar with the meeting and a report by the London-based independent outlet, Afghanistan International.
On October 19, during a visit to Sheikh Zahid University in Khost province, Neda Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, barred the filming of the event, according to the London-based Afghanistan International.
On October 23, the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense launched the broadcast of Radio Sada-e-Khalid, which is managed by the ministry and operates from the 201st Corps of the Taliban army.
Since taking power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, the Taliban has employed a gradual strategy to suppress media activity in the country, with the General Directorate of Intelligence forcing compliance with stringent regulations. These include bans on music and soap operas, bans on women’s voices in the media, the imposition of mask-wearing for female presenters, a ban on live broadcasts of political shows, the closure of television stations, and the jamming or boycotting of independent international networks broadcasting to Afghanistan. To enforce these policies, the Taliban have detained, assaulted, and threatened journalists and media workers throughout the country.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
CPJ Staff | Radio Free (2024-10-28T21:06:59+00:00) Taliban bans television broadcasts and public filming and photographing in Takhar province . Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2024/10/28/taliban-bans-television-broadcasts-and-public-filming-and-photographing-in-takhar-province/
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