The news from Afghanistan is devastating. Over the last few weeks, the Taliban have captured one province after another. Now, they have seized Kabul and are proclaiming "victory,” as TVs around the world show images of Islamist fighters in the presidential palace.
The Taliban are also among the world's biggest enemies of press freedom. In recent years, their numerous attacks on people working in the media have claimed several lives.
In 2017, for example, a cameraman and a colleague working for the Afghanistan National Assembly's public broadcast channel were among those killed in twin bombings near the parliament building in Kabul. Two more colleagues from the station and a journalist from the weekly newspaper Kerad were injured.
The so-called "Islamic State" (IS) has also carried out repeated terror attacks in Afghanistan. In 2018, the group specifically targeted journalists in a twin attack in Kabul, killing nine media workers.
Fundamentalist violence chiefly targets women
Afghanistan already regularly ranks among the world's five most dangerous countries for journalists in Reporters Without Borders annual report on violence against media representatives. It is to be feared that the situation will deteriorate dramatically with the Taliban takeover.
Women who work as journalists in Afghanistan are particularly at risk. In March alone, at least three female journalists — Mursal Wahidi, Sadia Sadat and Shahnaz Raufi — were killed in a country where women are frequently the target of fundamentalist propaganda. On December 10, 2020, two men opened fire on journalist Malala Maiwand's car as she was traveling to work. Maiwand and her driver were both killed in the attack.
The Taliban takeover does not merely pose a danger to people's lives. It also threatens to cut off their information supply. More than 50 media outlets — mostly local radio and TV stations — have been forced to shut down in Taliban-controlled areas. Those still in operation are only broadcasting religious programming or other content dictated by the extremist group. Some 100 journalists have lost their jobs because they have been forced to flee areas occupied by the Taliban and seek protection in the country's big cities.
Afghans working for the German media not the only ones who need help
Most of those journalists have come to Kabul in hopes of getting a visa at one of the foreign embassies there. Many fear that colleagues working for international media outlets will get preferential treatment.
The German government must immediately step in to help those endangered Afghan journalists — and human rights defenders as well — who are at risk across the country. It can do so by issuing emergency visas without further delay and allowing those individuals to leave the country.
In an open letter, Reporters Without Borders, Deutsche Welle and other German media outlets have appealed to Germany's chancellor and foreign minister to help Afghans working for German media outlets. But that emergency aid should not be restricted to them alone.
Five Afghan media workers have already been killed this year. More fatalities are likely to follow unless swift action is taken. Journalists' lives are under threat.
This article has been translated from the German