The world of Afghan TV presenter Golali Karimi fell apart in August 2021 when the Taliban stormed her studio.
“They took our security guards, broke into our building and rushed on set. I knew then, the Taliban had taken Kabul.”
Karimi, who worked for a number of Afghan channels including Shamshad TV and Lemar TV, would later be asked to interview Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid, in what would be one of his first public interviews on television. She showed me a video of the interview on her phone. “You can just see it on my face, I was absolutely terrified,” she said.
After that interview, Karimi received too many death threats to bear and left Afghanistan as a political refugee, finally settling in France: “When I first arrived, I didn’t even know what bonjour meant.”
To make ends meet, Karimi found a job as a waitress, later working in a supermarket. It took her two years to find her job at Begum TV in the 18th arrondissement of Paris.
In almost fluent French, Karimi told me: “I liked those jobs, I learnt a lot, but I am so happy to be a journalist again.”
Launched on International Women’s Day in March 2024, Begum TV broadcasts entertainment and educational programmes for Afghan women from Paris. It reaches thousands of women and girls in Afghanistan, who tune in to follow programmes ranging from poetry to sexual and reproductive health to music and culture. The programming is in both Dari and Pashto languages.
Begum TV has also digitalised the entire Afghan school curriculum, so that girls can continue to educate themselves despite being almost entirely banned from public spaces.
“They phone in and ask questions about their classes all the time,” Karimi told me. She now hosts a variety of shows at the channel, mostly programmes discussing poetry and culture.
I met Karimi during a visit to the Paris Begum TV studios. Ushered into the green room, I was offered tea and biscuits several times – that’s Afghan hospitality for you – and saw presenters applying their makeup impeccably, whilst occasionally bursting into fits of giggles. At moments like these, Paris could not have felt further from Kabul.
And despite being more than 7,000 kilometres away from Kabul in actual distance, Karimi (who is shown smiling behind the Begum TV scenes in the photograph below) still wears a mask on the streets of Paris for fear of being recognised. “People are still angry with me and what I post online, but I want to show women what is possible,” she said. She showed me her Instagram account with 60,000 followers where she posts about her life in Paris and her advocacy work. “You can see in the comments, some think it is great but there are also a lot of angry people.”
Photo by Emily Boyle
Karimi’s fellow presenter Saira Akakhil hosts Begum TV’s health programme. Akakhil left Afghanistan for obvious reasons: “I am a journalist and I am a woman,” she said.
Despite being out of the country, the fact that she works in the media remains dangerous for her family in Afghanistan. “Every time the phone rings, I fear the worst. I am absolutely terrified to pick up.”
The crackdown on Afghanistan’s media happened soon after the Taliban came to power. According to the United Nations, there were 336 recorded cases of arrest, detention, torture and intimidation of journalists and media workers between August 2021 and September 2024.
Broadcast journalism has been particularly vulnerable to threats and intimidation, as journalists are more recognisable and easier to track down. Women in particular have been banned from radio and television broadcasting in several provinces.
It is not surprising that Akakhil fears the worst for her family. On 4 February, Radio Begum, the sister channel to Begum TV which is based in Kabul, was raided by the Taliban and temporarily shut down. Radio Begum is one of the last remaining female-run media outlets in Afghanistan.
The Taliban accused the station of violating public broadcasting rules, although Radio Begum insists it was only providing educational content and attempting to provide women with a source of information after girls were banned from secondary school education by Afghanistan’s new rulers in 2021. Although the station was later allowed to resume broadcasting, the attack illustrated once more the Taliban’s violent crackdown on women.
It is clear that Begum TV is perceived as a threat to the Taliban. Far from the group’s media censors, the channel can independently reach more than 20 million women who have been stripped of their rights. The incident in Kabul was also a message to Begum’s offices in Paris.
Akakhil describes an upcoming interview in which she planned to talk to a doctor based in Kabul about periods and virginity, a very taboo topic for Afghans. The livestream was open for questions, and she was expecting quite a few callers from Afghanistan.
“Yesterday, I was going to talk to the doctor about anaemia. I think he must have looked us up and seen the news about Radio Begum. He got scared and cancelled last minute,” she said. Despite the distance, the Taliban raid in February seems to have had at least some of its desired effect.
During my visit to Begum’s buzzing Paris offices, I was struck by the resilience of the women there, who maintain hope despite the violent gender apartheid that is tearing their country apart, and appears to be worsening as time passes.
In December 2024, the Taliban banned the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas where women are likely to be, and urged for walls to be built around houses to shield neighbours from the view of women using areas such as courtyards, to prevent “obscene acts”, according to the decree passed.
Women are no longer allowed to sing or recite poetry in public, and are strongly encouraged to veil both their bodies and voices outside their homes. Girls can no longer receive education beyond primary school. Women have been banned from attending medical training. Most public spaces are closed to women. It is devastating and heartbreaking.
But Akakhil is steadfast. She has no choice. “I am in love with this job. My people need this programme. I am the voice of Afghan women. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.”
