The Taliban targeted us, beat us and chased us out. This is how we run our Afghan newspaper from exile | Sakhidad Hatif
In the two decades before the Taliban returned to power, Afghanistan had a vibrant media sector. There were newspapers, television channels, periodicals, magazines and more, invigorating the public discourse by allowing citizens to express their views on national and local issues. That is completely gone now.
I have been the editor-in-chief of one of Afghanistan’s largest newspapers, Etilaat Roz, since 2022. When the Taliban dismantled the republican system of the country in August 2021, establishing their own theocratic Islamic emirate in the process, they imposed the harshest restrictions possible on the media. This “crackdown on free speech” was followed by the prolonged detention, gruesome beating and even death of journalists who defied the Taliban’s policies against the free press. Two of my reporters at Etilaat Roz were grievously assaulted and detained for doing their jobs.
According to Reporters Without Borders, a majority of female and half of male journalists lost their jobs in the first three months of the Taliban’s takeover. Not only did many talented journalists lose the ability to work, many were also forced to flee the country or go into hiding to escape persecution. Our offices, which were once located in the heart of western Kabul, were forced to close. Almost all our staff have now left the country, and those who remain are expected to leave in the coming months.
But operations that have been forced out of Afghanistan, like ours, did not bend to the will of the Taliban. While in exile, many Afghan journalists regrouped and relaunched their media outlets, despite huge uncertainty and financial pressure. As the Taliban quashed all independent media and the vacuum of information within the country became deeper and wider, newspapers, television channels and other online platforms launched by journalists in exile became a lifeline – the only sources of credible information for people inside Afghanistan.
Since 2021, we have been operating from a suburb of Washington DC for the safety of our staff, with seven staff based there. However, this transition was not a smooth one for us. The first challenge was to muster all our courage and strength to revitalise our journalistic work after the traumatising collapse of the country that upended our professional life in such an appalling way. The second was to register Etilaat Roz, find an office for it and turn it into a viable media organisation in exile, while a number of its staff were still scattered in different countries, trying to come to the US.
The third challenge was the safety and security of our reporters in Afghanistan who, despite having lost all of their legal protections, did not quit reporting. As the Taliban’s crackdown on independent journalists intensified, we were at a loss as to how to protect our reporters (this concern is still as present as ever). The fourth challenge was raising enough funds to support Etilaat Roz’s operating costs inside Afghanistan and abroad, which has remained a constant struggle. The fifth challenge was to make sure Etilaat Roz remained a credible source of information in exile, just as it had been inside the country. This was a challenge because we no longer had the same access to sources that we had in the past.
Central to this have been the courageous journalists who stayed in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Their reports from the ground to Afghan media outlets abroad, including Etilaat Roz and its English version, KabulNow, are the lifeblood of online newspapers, television channels and other social media platforms.
Those journalists, both male and female, risk their own lives and the safety of their families to document and report about what is going on in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. Had it not been for their courage and commitment to reveal and report the truth, Afghanistan would have sunk into darkness and the Taliban propaganda and distortion machine would have drowned out all dissenting voices.
At great personal cost, they have succeeded in bringing to light stories of the Taliban harassing, detaining, torturing, and raping female dissidents. They uncovered the Taliban’s extrajudicial killings of former army officers and public servants, despite having announced full amnesty for them. They documented and reported on the Taliban’s campaign of extortion, displacement of people from their homes and requisition of their property and land.
The Taliban have consistently tried to portray themselves as more moderate than the Taliban of the 90s. But there are hardly any signs of their supposed moderation – they have stayed faithful to opposing free speech and non-state independent media. Their intelligence service, called Estekhbarat in the local languages, has been active from day one in finding interrogating, detaining, and torturing independent journalists.
The Taliban spread fear and anxiety among the media community by the harsh punishments they impose on detained journalists. They use detention, torture and prohibitive financial fines both to prevent detained journalists from returning to media activities and to intimidate other journalists by signalling what may await them. The Taliban also harass journalists’ families to maximise the pressure on them. To legitimise their stifling of the free press, the Taliban also deliberately provoke religious and xenophobic sentiments among the public. They consistently promote the notion that independent journalists are mercenaries, hired by foreigners and tasked with corrupting and destroying the Islamic faith, Afghan family values and the traditional way of life in Afghanistan.
As a result of the ceaseless suppression of the free press in Afghanistan, journalists are facing other challenges besides security issues. The chief professional challenges include the lack of access to reliable sources, difficulties in fact-checking and the verification of information, documents and sources. Journalists are also under extraordinary financial strain in the absence of financial support from within the country or from abroad.
Today, the independent Afghan media (called “mercenary media” by the Taliban) is the only source of information for the citizens of Afghanistan and the only remaining force trying to prevent the country from completely falling into total darkness. Supporting it is of the utmost importance. This support could be in the form of providing journalism training and scholarships for those aspiring to join this struggle against tyranny and darkness; it could be in the form of technical and financial support to the independent media outlets to increase their effectiveness and reach, and weaken the Taliban’s overarching control of the country’s information channels.
The Taliban are obviously trying to dispose of all free press and independent media in Afghanistan – because the independent media represents the only remaining channels of civil discourse, democratic deliberation and uncensored truth-telling. The future of Afghanistan, as a democratic and open society, hinges upon the continuation of an informed national dialogue, made possible by the free press, on how to move the country forward towards peace, non-violence, stability and development. The disappearance of independent media would plunge Afghanistan into tyranny and darkness.
Sakhidad Hatif is editor-in-chief of Etilaat Roz
Watch Guardian documentary House No 30, Kabul (26 mins), a video diary by journalist Abbas Rezaie, shot inside the Etilaat Roz office when the Taliban seized power in 2021 and forced many of the journalists to flee abroad
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