Kabul [Afghanistan]: As violence has increased in Afghanistan, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern over the situation of Afghan journalists, and said that hundreds of journalists have recently fled the war-torn country. Citing a CPJ statement, Tolo News reported that some journalists have recently been detained or beaten in Afghanistan. “Taliban leaders appear even less likely than Afghanistan’s previous government to respond to local and international calls to end the country’s culture of impunity for crimes against journalists,” Tolo News quoted the New York-based media rights group. “After the recent evolution in Afghanistan, the cases of violence against journalists have increased. This issue has caused concern to the Afghanistan National Journalists Union,” said Masrror Lutfi, head of the ANJU. According to the publication, the deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, denied the report of the CPJ. “Sometimes when some exceptional cases happened, we investigated them and will investigate them,” he added. Earlier a journalist union reported that more than 30 acts of violence towards journalists have been recorded in Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power. “Afghanistan’s National Journalists’ Union conducted a general assessment over the journalists’ status for Afghanistan across the country and it shows that over 30 cases of violence against journalists happened,” Masroor Lufti, the head of the union, said. “Nearly 90 per cent of these cases belong to the Taliban,” Lufti was quoted by the Afghan TOLO news media. Last month, several Afghan journalists were reported to have been seized by the Taliban for covering protests in Kabul. At least 27 Afghan TV and radio broadcasters stopped operations since the Taliban takeover in mid-August, Russian news agency Sputnik reported. Meanwhile, the Journalists Association in the country has called on the international organizations which stand for freedom of media to support and back Afghanistan’s media, saying that there is a lack of access to information despite the introduction of spokespersons to the government departments. They called on officials of the Islamic Emirate to take steps to resolve the problem faced by the journalists.
