KABUL (SW): Freedom of expression was one of the main achievements of Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime and the emergence of the new government. In the past 16 years, dozens of institutions inside and outside of Afghanistan have received plenty of funds to work for the freedom of expression so that all people can speak without concern; freely criticize the highest ranking authorities of the government, and expose the shortcoming and inadequacy in their work, and take them accountable.
During this process, dozens of radio, visual and written media have emerged. Hundreds of thousands of local residents have access to social media, and through this, dozens of investigative reports on corruption in government and other institutions have been published. With all these efforts, freedom of expression has not, in the true sense, been institutionalized in Afghanistan.
One of the major problems facing freedom of expression in Afghanistan is the lack of access to information by journalists. For nearly three years now, the law on access to information has been in place in Afghanistan, but a large number of people, especially journalists, still face difficulties in accessing information.
In order to know what problems reporters have in accessing information, I set up appointments with few of them and visited them.
I went to see Qiam Noori; the Ariana TV correspondent. In conversation with him, I realized that he was not happy with the spokespersons of the government. Qiam Noori said the information often given by government spokespersons to the media have not been accurate and reliable. He further said that spokespersons often talk with journalists by favoring some over the others.
According to Qiam Noori, government spokespersons have allotted journalists into groups, “A number of spokespersons have been paying more attention to mass media reporters, and have treated the local media reporters with less attention or often provided them brief answers to get rid of them”. He added, in some cases often the division of journalists into groups are based on gender; “women correspondent and female media employees are often paid more attention than men”.
I said goodbye to Qiam Noori and went to meet one of the Tamadun TV correspondent. Mani Mushkin Qalam also confirmed the sayings of Qiam Noori. Muskin Qalam said that the government spokespersons have often shown negligence in providing information to reporters, and in most cases, have provided the information that they like that people know about it. This journalist even accused the government spokespersons of not knowing about the right of access to information.
Mani Muskin Qalam, said about the different treatment of journalists by the spokespersons of the government; “spokespersons easily pass on some of the questions thrown by journalists in press briefings, and often take with them few popular media correspondents to provincial or foreign trips”.
I went to meet Mujeeb Khalwatgar, the Executive Director of NAI-Supporting Free Media in Afghanistan. Mr. Khalwatgar talked about the views of the journalists and said that despite of this that the numbers of spokespersons have increased in the National Unity Government, but the level of accountability has declined considerably.
According to Khalwatgar, in most cases the information is selected to be used by journalists in the media. According to Khalwatgar, the government does not have the will to share information with people and the media. He said, with the confirmation of journalists’ statements about the dual approach of the government to the media that the government and its spokespersons believe in the power of the government rather than the right to have access to information.
Finally, I shared the complaints of the reporters and the lack of access to information issue with Shah Hussain Mortazavi, Acting Spokesperson for President Ghani. Mr. Mortazavi confirmed the negligence of a number of spokespersons of some ministries in responding to reporters, but said that the status of government providing information to the media have changed considerably from the past.
Regarding the dual approach of some government spokespersons with the journalists, the Spokesperson for the President said that in the National Unity Government all the media have been equal, and according to the law, all the spokespersons are required to provide the same information to all the media and journalists without distinction.
He assured that the government is seeking to improve the relations between spokespersons and the journalists and the media.
These statements were being made while various reviews have been released on the status of access to information in Afghanistan by different institutions especially news media outlets. These studies have shown that the problem of access to information in provinces of Afghanistan were more than the capital, and were associated with inappropriate behavior towards journalists and even threats to them.
ENDS
