AYA BATRAWY
DUBAI, UAE (Afghanistan) – Afghanistan’s most popular private television channel has voluntarily replaced its Turkish soap operas and music shows with domestic programs adapted to the country’s new Taliban rulers, who have issued vague directives that the media must not contradict Islamic laws or harm the national interest.
Still, independent Afghan news outlets keep women presenters on the air and test the limits of media freedom under the group, whose militants have killed journalists in the past but promised an open system and inclusive since he came to power in August.
As the world watches over clues about how the Taliban will govern, its media treatment will be a key indicator, along with its policies toward women. When they ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, they applied a harsh interpretation of Islam, banning girls and women from school and public life, and brutally suppressing dissent.
Since then, Afghanistan has seen the media proliferate, and women have advanced in the constraints of deeply conservative society.
At first signal, the Taliban are trying to soften their extremist reputation, one of their officials unexpectedly entered the studios of private property Tolo News just two days after taking control of Kabul in mid-August. She sat down for an interview with the female anchor, Behishta Arghand.
The 22-year-old still told The Associated Press that she was nervous when she saw him enter the studio, but her behavior and the way she answered the questions helped put her a little at ease.
“I just told myself that this is a good time to show everyone, Afghan women do not want to go back. They want to … move forward, “he said.
Arghand fled the country after the interview, unwilling to risk the Taliban’s promises of greater openness. He is temporarily in a Qatar detention facility for Afghan refugees.
He is among hundreds of journalists, many considered the best in his field, who left the country after the Taliban’s acquisition, which was part of an exodus of more than 100,000 Afghans.
However, her interview with the Taliban official marked a remarkable change from the first time militants ruled when women had to cover themselves from head to toe and die stoned in public for adultery and other alleged crimes.
This time, the Taliban shared a video of girls going to school in the provinces. They have also held press conferences after taking control of Kabul, presenting questions from local and international media.
Saad Mohseni, CEO and chairman of Moby Group, owner of Tolo News, said he believes the Taliban are tolerating the media because they understand that they have to win heart and mind, convince the political establishment to play a role and consolidate your government.
“The media is important to them, but what they do to the media in a month or two is yet to be seen,” he said from Dubai, where Moby Group has an office.
While the United States and its allies failed to create a stable democracy in Afghanistan, they did manage to create a thriving press, said Steven Butler, coordinator of the Committee’s Asia program to protect journalists. He noted that the US government spent huge sums of money on the project as the foundation of democracy on the CPJ website.
Initial U.S. grants helped launch Tolo, which began as a radio station in 2003 and quickly expanded into television. The Pashto and Dari language station employs 500 people and is the most watched private network in Afghanistan.
Known for his news and entertainment programs, Tolo decided for himself to remove music shows and soap operas from the airwaves because “we didn’t think they were acceptable to the new regime,” Mohseni said. Romantic dramas have been replaced by a Turkish television series set in Ottoman times, with more modestly dressed actresses.
Afghanistan’s state broadcaster, RTA, took its presenters off the air until further notice. Independent television station Zan TV, run by women, has stopped showing new programming.
The privately run Ariana news channel, however, has kept its female anchors in the air. Tolo had a hostess on the breakfast program on Thursday and the network features a female news presenter and several reporters.
Since he took control, there have been reports of Taliban beating and threatening journalists. In a known case, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said Taliban militants who went door-to-door on the hunt for one of its journalists shot dead a member of his family and seriously injured another.
“We need to make sure that Afghan journalism stays alive because people will need it,” said Bilal Sarwary, a longtime journalist in Afghanistan whose work has appeared on the BBC, among others. .
Although he has also left Afghanistan with his family, he said a generation of citizen journalists is more empowered than ever.
“If we can’t go back, it doesn’t mean we will give up Afghanistan. We will work in Afghanistan from wherever it is. … Global connectivity is the new normal, ”Sarwary said.
Meanwhile, the Taliban are allowing journalists to enter Afghanistan from Pakistan and allow the media to continue operating in Kabul, albeit under disastrous guidelines. They have stipulated that news outlets should not contradict Islamic values and should not challenge the national interest.
Such vague rules are typical of authoritarian states throughout the Middle East and Central Asia, where they have been used to silence and prosecute journalists. To function, local media may have to practice self-censorship to avoid repercussions.
Afghanistan has long been dangerous to journalists. The CPJ says 53 journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001 and 33 of them since 2018.
In July, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Reuters photographer was killed during clashes between the Taliban and Afghan security forces. In 2014, an Agence France-Presse journalist, his wife and two children were among nine people killed by Taliban gunmen while eating at a hotel in Kabul.
Nearly two years later, in 2016, a Taliban suicide bomber attacked Tolo employees on a bus, killing seven and injuring at least 25 people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Tolo a tool of decadent Western influence.
Mohseni said he was concerned when the Taliban overran Kabul and that “it is not necessarily positive.”
“But I’m just thinking: let’s wait and see. Let’s see how restrictive they will be, “he said. “There is no doubt that they will be restrictive. The question is to what extent it is restrictive.
—-
Associated Press writers Tameem Akhgar in Istanbul (Turkey) and Bram Janssen in Doha (Qatar) collaborated.