MONITORING (SW) \u2013 The press freedom body, Reporters Without Borders, has urged the Afghan government to take necessary steps to end spiral of violence aimed at the community.<\/p>\n
This comes after yet another journalist\u2019s murder, the first in 2021. The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Afghanistan\u2019s authorities to make every effort to protect media personnel and said it is exploring all possible ways to help end the spiral of violence in this country.<\/p>\n
Besmellah Adel Imaq, the director of the\u00a0Voice of Ghor\u00a0radio station, was gunned down as he was returning home in Firoz Koh, the capital of the central province of Ghor, on the afternoon of 1 January, becoming the first Afghan journalist to be murdered in 2021 and the fifth media worker to be killed in the past two months.<\/p>\n
Imaq had been the target of two prior murder attempts, the latest in November, and had reported the threats against him to the authorities. After they took no steps to protect him, he filed complaints with journalists\u2019 associations.<\/p>\n
The other media victims of the past two months are\u00a0Mohammad Aliyas Dayee\u00a0of\u00a0Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty\u2019s Pashto-language service, murdered in Lashkargah on 12 November,\u00a0Malalai Maiwand, a TV presenter and representative of the Centre for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists (CPAWJ), and her driver\u00a0Taher Khan, who were murdered in Jalalabad on 10 December, and\u00a0Rahmatollah Nekzad, a reporter for international media, who was gunned down in Ghazni on 21 December.<\/p>\n
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the police say that eight individuals linked to the Taliban have been arrested as suspects in these four murders. When reached by RSF a few hours after Imaq\u2019s murder, Taliban spokesman Zabiholah Mojahed said the Taliban had \u201cno interest in killing journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impunity and opaqueness surrounding the murders of journalists are a major scourge in Afghanistan, but a godsend for all those seeking to destroy press freedom in this country,\u201d said Reza Moini, the head of RSF\u2019s Iran-Afghanistan desk. \u201cIt is vital that the Afghan authorities guarantee and reinforce the safety of media personnel. At the same time, RSF is exploring all possible international remedies for ending the spiral of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a 31 December communiqu\u00e9, the NDS said it had thwarted three attacks against journalists in the provinces Khost, Kabul and Ghazni. Threats and violence against journalists and media have surged in Afghanistan in recent months, although a respite might have been expected because of the peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Nearly 100 political and civil society actors, including five media workers, have been the targets of attacks in the past two years.<\/p>\n
Afghanistan is ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2020\u00a0World Press Freedom Index.<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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