Afghans Beyond Taliban

KANDAHAR -- Journalists travelling with the Canadian Forces will be required to wear military dog tags to identify them if they are injured or killed, Canada's top commander here said Monday. The new policy is part of a series of measures designed to remind the media of the risks of operating in this war-ravaged country. "We're not trying to restrain the freedom of movement of the media or their...

Afghan officials banned journalists Sunday from shooting photos and video or conducting interviews near the site where talks on the fate of 21 South Korean hostages are being held — new restrictions a day after two Taliban leaders held a news conference there, the Associated Press (AP) has reported. Taliban representative Mullah Bashir (left) addresses media representatives as Mullah Nasrullah...

Afghan secret police have arrested journalist and blogger Kamran Mir Hazar, editor of the kabulpress.org website, for the second time in just over a month. As he left his office Thursday in the company of some colleagues, he was arrested by four men waiting outside. They identified themselves as members of the secret police and took him away, without saying why. “Once again the authorities have...

Media practitioners and journalists from all over Afghanistan have adopted a historic National Charter for Media and Democracy. This charter, enshrining the values of free speech and the right to information of all citizens, will constitute the basis for action by professional media unions and associations in the years ahead. The charter was adopted at a summit meeting in Kabul on July 31. The...

Reporters Without Borders voiced relief on learning that a Danish journalist and his Afghan interpreter were freed shortly after being kidnapped last night in Taangar, in the eastern province of Konar. The provincial governor said they were released after a few hours. "Their swift release is excellent news but their abduction, however brief, confirms that the vicious circle of kidnappings of...

BERLIN: Germany officials said Wednesday they could not confirm reports from Afghanistan that a German journalist working for the Stern newsmagazine had been kidnapped and released, and Stern said he had never been kidnapped. Instead, officials in Afghanistan said a Danish journalist of Afghan origin had escaped a kidnapping attempt. Stern said journalist Christoph Reuter, subject of the initial...

Farida Nekzad began receiving menacing calls on her mobile phone a half hour after arriving at the funeral of a fellow female journalist assassinated by gunmen. “Daughter of America! We will kill you, just like we killed her,”’ she quoted the man on the phone as saying even as Nekzad was mourning Zakia Zaki, the owner of a radio station north of Kabul. Zaki’s maimed body lay nearby, part of her...

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has condemned the brutal murder of two prominent female journalists in Afghanistan. Koïchiro Matsuura decried the “cold-blooded killing Zakia Zaki, founder of one of the first community radio stations run entirely by women in Afghanistan, radio Sada — e — Sulh (Peace) in Jabul Seraj.” He noted that the murder...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called on Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to do his utmost to ensure that the killers of the head of Peace Radio, Zakia Zaki, who was regularly threatened by warlords, are tracked down and punished. Two armed men broke into the family home of the head of radio Sada-e-Sulh (Peace Radio) in Jabalussaraj, in the northern province of Parwan, and gunned her down...

Three gunmen shot dead a female journalist in the north of Afghanistan capital Kabul, the second such killing in less than a week. Zakia Zaki, who also served as headmistress of a school in Parwan province, ran a private radio station, partially funded by a Western media group, Reuters reported. The 35-year-old married woman was killed at her house late on Tuesday night. Zaki was threatened...