Afghanistan

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reiterated its call for the release of Hojatullah Mujadadi, the only journalist detained in Afghanistan. According to the latest information it has obtained, Mujadadi’s arrest by the National Directorate of Security was based on a confession extracted by force from a young man identified as Veiss, an opponent of former Kapisa...

Radio station director Hojatullah Mujadadi is currently the only journalist detained in Afghanistan. Although President Hamid Karzai ordered his release, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an Afghan intelligence agency, is still holding him in appalling conditions, without allowing him the right to be defended by a lawyer. His arrests violates Afghan law, under which all cases involving...

Radio Kapisa FM director Hojatullah Mujadadi is still being held by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) in Kabul, although both Afghan officials and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced on September 24 that he had been released. “My son is still being held by the security forces,” Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) was told by...

Three journalists detained in Afghanistan have been released over the past week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) released Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelance contributor to Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press detained Monday in Ghazni province, and Mohammed Nader, an Al-Jazeera cameraman taken Wednesday...

Three journalistswho had been arrested in the past few days by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan police have been released. Their release was requested by President Hamid Karzai, Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. “We are extremely relieved that these three arrests, which we had described as a serious mistake, have...

NATO forces have freed one of three detained Afghan Al-Jazeera journalists, AP and other media outlets announced on Friday. The three had been detained on suspicion of spreading Taliban propaganda, by among other things filming insurgent attacks. Two still remain in custody. Al-Jazeera cameraman Mohammad Nadir was released early on Friday, AP reported. IPI and other press freedom organisations had...

Two Afghan journalists were seized by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in early-morning raids at their homes this week, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Rahmatullah Nekzad, a freelancer who contributes to Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press,was arrested just after midnight Monday in Ghazni, according to local and international media reports...

Three Afghan journalists based in the provinces have been arrested in separate cases in the past four days because of their coverage of the parliamentary elections or for having contact with the Taliban, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Hojatullah Mujadadi, a radio station manager and head of a journalists’ association, was arrested by police in the...

A prominent Afghan television news journalist and political activist has been murdered near his Kabul home. Sayed Hamid Noori, who was also deputy head of Afghanistan's National Journalists' Association, was found dead of knife wounds late Sunday. "Someone called him and asked him to come down from his apartment last night. His body was found later by police in a tree-covered area near his home,"...

A Japanese journalist who was abducted by militants in Afghanistan five months ago has been freed by his captors and left the country, Japan's Foreign Ministry said. Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance journalist and veteran of war zones, was abducted on April 1. He was released Saturday night to a Japanese embassy and appeared tired but otherwise unharmed, the ministry said in a statement. "Thank you to...