Committee to Protect Journalists Warns of Intensifying Media Suppression in Afghanistan

Elaha Fri Aug 2026 1 month ago 273

The committee stated that after returning to Kabul, the Taliban sidelined female journalists from working in state media and beat those who covered protests. According to this organization, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of journalists also became one of the Taliban's main tools for exerting pressure and censoring the media starting the following year.


Khalid Qadiri, a journalist and producer at Radio Nooresh in Herat, was among the first journalists identified who was convicted and imprisoned after the Taliban's return due to his professional activities.


Waliullah Rahmani, the representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that over the past five years, the Taliban have turned Afghanistan into one of the most difficult countries in the world for journalists to operate in. According to him, journalists face surveillance, arrests, beatings, and censorship, and some have been forced to flee the country. He added that female journalists face even greater discrimination, and restrictions on the internet and telecommunications networks have further increased the Taliban's control over the information space.


The Committee to Protect Journalists says that censorship in Afghanistan is no longer limited to pressure on journalists but has expanded to the systematic control of the topics that media are allowed to cover. The organization also stated that the Taliban have disrupted broadcasts of Afghanistan International and, to suppress independent media, have established an extensive information network under their control.


Journalists in several provinces have also said that restrictions have increased so much that, aside from topics like health and education, even traffic accidents are among the few events that can still be covered.


The organization has also warned about the situation of journalists who have left Afghanistan due to pressure and harassment from the Taliban. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the collapse of independent media has forced hundreds of journalists to flee the country, and many of them are now in neighboring countries facing the risk of arrest, deportation, and forced return. The committee has warned that returning journalists who fled due to Taliban persecution could expose them to the risk of arbitrary arrest and retaliation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, on the fifth anniversary of the Taliban's return to power, has urged the group to end its suppression of the media, particularly the pressure on female journalists, and to lift the extensive restrictions on people's access to independent information. The organization states that the Taliban's restrictions have reduced citizens' access to independent information and created the conditions for the establishment of a media system under the control of this group.

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