Caught between Fronts: Journalists in Afghanistan

Reconstruction work in Afghanistan is stagnating. The security situation is worsening day by day. Many parts of the country are witnessing brutal clashes, with heavy military and civilian casualties. Opium production and corruption have hit record highs. But no one is willing to take the responsibility for this.

Journalists, who are reporting on these issues, are risking their lives. But they are facing pressures from both the government and the Taliban, who demand "objective reporting", but what they mean by it are their own opinions. According to the government in Kabul, not only has the situation in the country deteriorated but also the reporting on the country as such. Freedom of the press, which was incorporated in the Afghan constitution in bold letters after the fall of the Taliban regime a few years ago, is being continuously restricted. Mujib Khelwatgar, a print journalist from Kabul, explains:

"Our biggest problem is that the authorities don’t really give us useful information. And when we try to find out the information from other sources then we have to bear in mind the repercussions"

Arbitrary press law

The journalists’ associations in Afghanistan accuse the government of running a campaign against press freedom. The cabinet has passed a press law and introduced certain changes, which included clauses banning coverage of subjects that could offend Islam or dishonour the political system of the country. But many find the law arbitrary and see it as a form of censorship. Khelwatgar thinks that what is lacking is a full understanding of the working of a democracy:

"The political leaders of our country don’t know that freedom of the press is very important, and that it belongs to the process of democratisation."

"Threatened by both sides"

The situation is even worse in the southern and eastern provinces, which are badly hit by insurgency and are witnessing regular clashes between the troops and Taliban militants. Journalists, who want to report from there, are stuck between the fronts. They are being observed by the Taliban as well as by the local leaders. As Kandahar-based journalist Nurullah Nuri explains, providing objective information is not really an easy task:

"We are constantly threatened by both sides. There is no security or guarantee for us that we will not be attacked from either side while reporting. So we don’t really go into many details and provide general information only. "

Since the fall of the Taliban regime six years ago, things have turned out to be vastly different than what the people might have been expecting. It’s not democracy and freedom of the press which have been able to establish themselves, but rather the powers which were supposed to have been conquered. And that is why Nuri is asking himself, whether people in the democratic West know, what exactly is happening in Afghanistan. He himself knows that his country, and especially the region that he comes from, are steadily sinking into chaos. However, who will dare to write about such things from the heart of the embattled south?