However, Khobaib Ghofran, spokesperson for the Ministry of Information and Culture of the de-facto government of the Islamic Emirate, claims that no violence against journalists has occurred in the past three years. He adds that the detention of some journalists by security agencies is unrelated to their journalistic work.
“The claims regarding violence against journalists published by various sources are not true because such a situation does not exist. These people have attempted to relate even cases that are beyond journalistic field or where journalists have had security issues and the government intervened, but in reality such a thing does not exist,” he emphasized.
Some journalists, referring to incidents of violence against journalists over the past two decades, say that the culture of impunity for crimes against journalists must end.
Zulaikha Ahmadi, an employee of a visual media outlets in Kabul, says that journalists have faced serious challenges, including violence and harassment, for the past two decades. “In the last two decades, unfortunately, the situation for journalists has not been nice. We have witnessed that in recent years, journalists in the country have been killed for various reasons; they have been tortured; they have been harassed, but the attention that should have been given to these cases has not been provided,” she shared.
At the same time, António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, has also expressed concern about the situation of journalists, stating that out of every 10 cases of journalist killings worldwide, nine remain unpunished.
Every year, November 2 is observed as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists to honor and recognize the efforts of journalists who have lost their lives in the pursuit of information and truth.
