06 Feb 23 | Afghanistan, News and features
The UK government is failing journalists who were left behind in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of forces from the country in 2021.
As Britain mulled over the idea of a withdrawal of troops after 20 years in the country, it launched the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme to offer relocation of eligible Afghans to the UK.
When Kabul fell in a matter of days in August 2021 after British and US troops left, the Government launched Operation Pitting, the largest humanitarian aid operation since the Berlin airlift. This saw more than 10,000 eligible Afghan nationals as well as British residents evacuated following the rapid military offensive by the resurgent Taliban.
On 18 August 2021, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme, which would resettle up to 20,000 people at risk, with 5,000 in the first year. This is in addition to those brought to the UK under ARAP.
At the time, the government said that the scheme would prioritise “those who have assisted the UK efforts in Afghanistan and stood up for values such as democracy, women’s rights and freedom of speech, rule of law (for example, judges, women’s rights activists, academics [and] journalists)” and “vulnerable people, including women and girls at risk”.
The evacuation of Afghan journalists to the safety of Britain has not happened.
Index on Censorship has been contacted by a large number of Afghan journalists who would appear to be prime candidates for the scheme but help has not been forthcoming. Other governments, including those of Germany, France and even Kosovo, have offered safe refuge to a number of journalists but the UK is failing in its obligations.
There remains a large number of journalists, particularly women, who remain in the country or have made it across the border to the seeming safety of Pakistan only to continue to face threats.
The Afghanistan Journalists’ Support Organization reported on 3 February that a number of Afghan journalists had been arrested in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. According to the report, phones, laptops, cameras, and other electronic and personal devices of journalists have been seized and inspected. Those arrested have passports and visas and are legally residing in Pakistan. They were later released but one Afghan journlaist said that the behavour of the Pakistani police towards those fleeing the Taliban was “insulting and wrong”.
As well as arrest, journalists fleeing Afghanistan to Pakistan face other problems. One female journalist, who was forced to leave Afghanistan for fear of retribution by the Taliban, has shared her shocking story with Index below.
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“I am a young Afghan broadcast journalist with almost five years of experience in the field. I have worked as a news anchor, presenter and reporter during the course of my career, and I have been associated with a nunebr of renowned media organisations in Afghanistan.
“Due to my work as a journalist, I have confronted many things from house raids, serious threats, online bullying, digital and cyber-attacks and harassment. I had received several threats from the Taliban before their rise to power, my Facebook account was hacked twice, I had to change my mobile number multiple times due to threats and harassment.
“After the takeover of Kabul, the Taliban launched a crackdown on the media and raids on the houses of the journalists started. Understanding the severity of the situation I tried to flee the country multiple times straight after their takeover, but due to closure of borders I didn’t succeed. I had to go into hiding and luckily I narrowly escaped a day before the raid of my house by the Taliban. I travelled in burqa with my elder brother to a location in the north east of the country where I stayed here for a month and a half with some of my distant relatives before fleeing clandestinely to Pakistan after borders were opened in October 2021.
“Since then, I have been living alone in Pakistan away from my family and loved ones with no job and livelihood. I have faced and I am still facing a plethora of issues here in Pakistan.
“I have been forced to live in unhygienic slums due to financial issues. I have spent many days without food and when I do eat, it is often just once a day. I have been ill many times, but I haven’t been to hospital or received any medication, and have been suffering from mental health issues like anxiety, depression, insomnia, and stress. I haven’t been able to purchase clothes for myself since I fled Afghanistan.
“I have also been a victim of discrimination and racism due to my ethnicity, nationality and religion. I was kicked out of two dormitories due to my nationality and ethnicity and also faced harassment and discrimination. In two places I have stayed my money was taken as a deposit before allowing me to live in the apartment as a tenant, but in both of these places my money was not returned when leaving.
“I have struggled to meet even my most basic needs, but support from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Frontline Defenders (FLD) has given me some respite and these funds have enabled me to survive.
“During this period, I have gone through hell – Pakistan is little different to Afghanistan. Here too there are Taliban sympathisers. There is no safety, no job opportunities, inflation is high. There is much discrimination, racism and prejudice in the society and there is hostility towards Afghan people in general and women in particular.
“A particularly unpleasant incident happened some months ago. One evening in July last year I was assaulted by an unknown biker while returning from the supermarket. The biker grabbed me and groped my body and was trying to pull me down to sexually assault me. But luckily this happened in the street near my flat, where I shouted loudly and, after a lot of pushing and shoving, I was able to escape. After this incident, I am scared to go out even during the day. Harassment in the streets for women is very normal here. I have to endure shameful touching, gazes and catcalls in public when I go out for anything and unfortunately, being Afghan, we can’t do anything about it.
“Now my situation is getting worse due to the long wait to relocate to a safe country. Moreover, the Pakistani authorities have put more restrictions on visas for Afghani people now, as the majority of visas are either denied or there are long delays. There is a clear reluctance from the government to issue visas to Afghans. I was on a one year visa to Pakistan which expired in the month of August 2022. I applied for a visa extension in the previous June 2022 but I have not received a decision yet. If the visa request is rejected I will be liable to pay heavy fines ($500) and face other legal liabilities. In December 2022, the Pakistani authorities announced that any Afghan without any valid visa will be arrested and put into prison for three years or deported back to Afghanistan.”
“I know of one Afghani family who were put in jail by the Pakistani authorities due to illegal overstay, where the male guardian of the family died in the jail – the rest of the family is still in jail. We all are really scared and fearful about this matter because we can’t afford any legal and financial liability or penalty at this stage. We also can’t go back to our country due to the severity of the threats to our life and safety and a really uncertain and dark future for women.”
“I am asking for assistance in relocating to any safe country where I could continue my journalism safely, complete my education and work to support myself and my family. In addition to serious threats for my life there is no future back home for women right now. There is a ban on education for women, a ban on women working in the media and NGOs and a ban on free movement of women outside without the veil and a male guardian. As a human being I also deserve the right to life, safety, education, and work. I deserve the freedom of movement and the freedom of expression, which are being denied and suppressed under the tyrannical and oppressive regime of Taliban. I am desperately and anxiously looking for any help in this regard and assistance with the financial support to meet my immediate and basic needs.
“I hope my plea will be heard and heeded in the right corners and a hand of support will be extended.”
06 Jan 23 | Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Iran, Mexico, Russia, Ruth's blog, South Sudan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States
Happy New Year!
I think we can all agree, regardless of where we live, that 2022 was a tumultuous year. There was seemingly a new crisis every day. Totalitarian regimes moving against their populations became increasingly normal, from Iran to China. The ongoing rise (and occasional fall) of populist politics. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. The rise of energy and food costs and the impact on some of the world’s poorest. The attempted murder of Sir Salman Rushdie. And to be parochial just for a moment, complete political insanity in the UK.
I really hoped that 2023 would mark the end, or at least a pause, of that wonderful Chinese saying – we live in interesting times. Even for just a few months I had dreamed of a period of calm, of quiet, of dullness. Or at least a few weeks so we could all catch up on life and enjoy the world we live in, rather than being anxious at turning on the news.
It is only the sixth day of the year and my wish for calm has already been broken. This week we have seen political dysfunction in the USA; Belarus has commenced trials against many of their high-profile detainees who were arrested during the demonstrations against Lukashenka; there have been deadly riots in Mexico and the news is filled with the gloom of Covid (and China’s censoring of news on it), flu and inflation. It’s day six…
We knew that this year would see significant world events, as the impact of the war in Ukraine continues to be felt. But China is also likely to seek to exploit this global diplomatic distraction for their own nefarious wants. And of course the protests in Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Mexico continue apace – even as they evolve.
Index will remain busy in the months ahead as we seek to shine a spotlight on the actions of totalitarian regimes and make sure that you hear from the people behind the headlines. From the women now banned from attending university in Afghanistan, from the democracy activists imprisoned in Belarus, from the Rohingya mothers held in camps as they flee Myanmar, from the journalists who fight to be heard and stay alive in Mexico. Index will keep providing a platform for the persecuted, so they can tell their stories and you can hear them.
Happy New Year in these interesting times.
21 Jan 22 | Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Opinion, Russia, Ruth's blog, United Kingdom, United States
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks down at the podium during a media briefing in Downing Street. Photo: Justin Tallis/PA Wire/PA Images
It should surprise no-one that I am a political geek. I love politics. I love the cut and thrust of debate. I love the moments of high drama and the intrigue. Most of all I love the fact that genuine good can be done. That people’s lives can be made just a little easier by the power of our collective democracy.
So you’d assume that I would have relished the events of the UK Parliament this week. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being completely obsessed with the minutiae of the debate around Partygate and the drama of the precarious position of the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP as he seeks to survive the biggest political crisis of his premiership.
But I’m also angry. The British Government has been distracted for weeks, caught in a political crisis of their own making about whether or not the Prime Minister knowingly broke his own Covid-19 regulations. While the political establishment awaits a report from a senior civil servant to clarify what was, or wasn’t, happening behind the doors of Number 10, important issues are being sidelined or ignored and people are suffering.
This week the British Parliament held vital debates on the genocide of the Uighurs and the use of the British legal system to silence activists and journalists. Both debates passed broadly without comment or wider notice.
The Russian Federation is threatening the sovereign status of a democratic ally, Ukraine, on an hourly basis.
Biden has marked his first year in office.
52,581 people have died of Covid.
Protestors in Kazakhstan are being threatened with death if they continue to protest against the government, with 10,000 already arrested and 225 killed by the authorities.
23 million people in Afghanistan are experiencing extreme hunger as the Taliban starts attacking women activists.
These are some of the heartbreaking and terrifying realities which are happening around the world. These are the issues that should have dominated our news agenda this week, along with a cost of living crisis, a plan to deliver net zero and attacks on free expression around the world.
Index will continue to fight for these issues to be heard. For the voices of the persecuted to be recognised. While some of our leaders focus on domestic intrigue we’ll keep fighting for those that don’t have a voice.
17 Dec 21 | Afghanistan, Magazine, Media Freedom, News and features, Volume 50.04 Winter 2021, Volume 50.04 Winter 2021 Extras
As a woman and a journalist, I have been living my worst nightmare since 15 August 2021, the day the Afghan capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban. Since that Sunday, I have been reporting about what women have lost – and what they continue to lose – as the new regime expands its power.
The Taliban have limited every aspect of women’s lives, from banning them from school and work to introducing long black uniforms that cover them from head to toe. Having grown up in Kabul since 2001, when the Taliban were deposed, I never imagined a return to the days when women were forced to stay home because of their gender.
When I was working as a journalist based in Kabul between 2011 and 2017, the media was the last hope for dissidents. Now the media, which continue to expose wrongdoing, have turned into dissidents. Today, making an editorial decision in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan is literally making a decision about life and death.
In our small newsroom at Rukhshana Media, an all-women news website, one recurrent concern is how to tell a story with minimum risk to the people involved. The journalist is often the first to face the consequences of his or her work.
Journalism under the Taliban
Afghanistan has never been a safe country for journalists but, after 2001, the nascent Afghan media were freer than media in neighbouring countries.
Now they can hardly function without getting visits and calls from the new rulers in charge – the group that labelled the media a military target and continued to threaten them before coming to power in mid-August.
Media outlets are closing and journalists are being arrested, tortured and being forced to go on the run.
On 14 August, the day before Kabul fell, Mujeeb Khalwatgar, executive director of the Afghan media advocacy group Nai, told me his organisation had heard from journalists in Baghlan, Kandahar and Herat provinces that the Taliban were searching for them.
The same day, I talked to a young journalist from the north-eastern province of Badakhshan who said his name was on the Taliban’s blacklist. He was hiding outside Fayzabad, the provincial capital.
Days before the Taliban took Fayzabad, one of his female colleagues was attacked by a man who covered his face. She survived the attack, but they were worried whether they could survive the new regime.
I talked to several women reporters from the provinces who sought shelter in Kabul as the Taliban took over, hoping to leave the country on evacuation flights. Many of them didn’t make it.
In early November, a 24-year-old-woman, one of only three female journalists in an entire province – who asked me not to name the province – said she was on a Taliban blacklist, according to a relative who was working with the militants. The radio station she worked for was among more than 150 media outlets forced to close because of Taliban-imposed restrictions and the economic crisis a month after Kabul fell.
As the breadwinner of a family of nine, the change in rulers meant she not only lost her job but is on the run for her life, simply for being a woman journalist. In the past two months, she has been forced to change her place of residence seven times to hide from the Taliban.
Women journalists are disappearing
An Afghan female journalist attends a Taliban news conference. Photo REUTERS/Jorge Silva
Two weeks after the Taliban’s return to power, Reporters Without Borders warned that “women journalists are in the process of disappearing from the capital”. The organisation noted that, of about 700 women journalists with jobs in Kabul, more than 600 had not returned to work. Some fled while others were forced to stay at home or go into hiding.
Our investigation at Rukhshana Media shows that there are no women journalists in radio or TV working in the western provinces of Herat, Farah, Badghis and Ghor.
The systematic removal of women from the media landscape is not the only immediate consequence of the Taliban’s return to power. Just three weeks after their takeover, the militants arrested 14 journalists, with at least nine of them subjected to violence during their detention, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Among those detained were an editor and four other journalists at Etilaat Roz, a newspaper that was a winner of Transparency International’s Anti-Corruption Award in 2020. Two of them were tortured by the Taliban and needed hospital treatment.
Today, journalists – both men and women – are still on the run. In November, I talked to a 31-year-old journalist who for the past eight years has been an investigative reporter for local print and online outlets. Since 15 August, he has been on the run with his family of four, having spent nights in five different places. He is particularly worried about his investigations into the Taliban-run religious schools.
“No one is listening to my calls for help, no one. I am just hoping the Taliban don’t catch me alive,” he said.
Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have issued warnings about the Taliban censorship of media, especially their “media regulations” which require journalists and media not to produce content “contrary to Islam” and not to report on “matters that have not been confirmed by officials”.
The chief editor of a radio station in Kabul who, despite not having a passport, attempted (unsuccessfully) to get on an evacuation flight out of the country in late August, told me his story. Now he is back at work, where, in one month, the Taliban have visited his office four times. Twice when his colleagues used the word “Taliban” instead of “the Islamic Emirate”, he received calls warning him to be careful with the choice of words.
He says his radio station, like all other Afghan media outlets, is under the Taliban’s scrutiny. Three of his colleagues in other provinces have been ordered by provincial officials to send their news first to the Taliban before it is signed off for broadcast.
With reliable sources of information having dried up and journalists either on the run or operating in an environment of fear, censorship and self-censorship, it is becoming harder to be a journalist.
The new environment creates opportunities for the circulation of false stories and propaganda on social media. Lately, it has become difficult to distinguish between real news and propaganda. Many on social media, including some journalists, are propagating stories that correspond with their biases and social and political prejudices which then will be used by some international media to verify their own assumptions and biases.
Fake news
Exposing false and misleading stories has been one of the primary goals of our team at Rukhshana Media, where we investigated two stories directly connected to misinformation and staged reporting in the past two months.
Many news outlets reported that Mahjabin Hakimi, a 25-year-old professional volleyball player, was beheaded by the Taliban. The reports were based entirely on the claim of her coach in Kabul’s volleyball club who spoke under a pseudonym. But our investigation, in which we interviewed five sources, including her parents and a friend who was present the day her body was found, showed that she died on 6 August – nine days before the Taliban took over Kabul.
In the second story, several people connected to the family of a nine-year-old girl featured in CNN’s bombshell report on child marriage told Rukhshana Media the report was invented.
Our reporters are working on the ground to bring women’s stories to the surface of a male-dominated Afghan media. In the past months, we have partnered with two international newsrooms, The Guardian and The Fuller Project, which has helped amplify the voice of Afghan women to wider audiences outside the country.
With women journalists remaining at risk, we are trying to create opportunities for them to continue their work and tell the stories of women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where they are banned from work and education and have no idea when they will be able to return to public life.
