KABUL (SW) – The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has condemned the recent restrictions on broadcast of international media partners’ local language news on the TV stations in the country.
“Taliban instruct Afghan media to suspend any further transmission of international media broadcasts. Another repressive step against the people of Afghanistan”, it tweeted.
BBC TV programming has been taken off air in Afghanistan, after the Taliban ordered local channels not to broadcast content from international partners, said the broadcaster in a statement. Calling it a “worrying development”, the BBC said it would affect more than six million viewers of Persian, Pashto and Uzbek language service programmes.
The BBC Persian TV channel can still be accessed – but only by the 20% of Afghans who have satellite TV.
Radio and online services are unaffected. Other international broadcasters whose programming was taken off air by the ruling include Voice of America, German company Deutsche Welle and China Global Television Network.
BBC World Service head of languages Tarik Kafala said it was crucial Afghans were not denied access to impartial journalism at a time of “uncertainty and turbulence”.
Before the ruling, the BBC had broadcast every day for half an hour in Pashto, via Afghan partner stations.
Similar arrangements allowed for 15 minutes of programming in Uzbek, five days a week, and for 60 minutes a day in Persian, also five days a week, backed by two weekly current affairs programmes.
ENDS
