Taliban Ban Visual Media Broadcasts in Panjshir and the Publication of Images of “Living Beings” in Several Provinces

Image: UN Photo/Homayon Khoram

The Taliban government has announced a ban on the activities of visual media in Panjshir province, an action that Nai in Exile has described as another sign of the “weakening of freedom of expression” in Afghanistan.

In a statement it published, the organization said that according to local reports, Taliban officials have sent letters to visual media outlets in Panjshir demanding the immediate suspension of their broadcasts.

Nai in Exile has warned that during more than four years of Taliban rule, the legal infrastructure supporting free media has been dismantled and the media space in the country has been severely restricted.

Data from the organization shows that more than half of the media outlets from the republic era have shut down, hundreds of journalists have been forced to leave Afghanistan or stop working, and 90 percent of women employed in the media have lost their jobs. Of the two thousand former female journalists, only 200 continue to work under difficult conditions.

The organization has also reported that during this period more than 800 cases of violence against media workers have been recorded, 350 of which resulted in the arrest of journalists. Dozens of journalists still remain in Taliban custody.

The Taliban have not yet officially responded to this report.

Meanwhile, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Kandahar has asked artists and YouTubers to refrain from publishing images of “living beings” on their social media platforms. Officials of this department have described such actions as “against the law.”

Following this order, a number of artists and YouTubers announced the end of their digital activities in video messages. Two Kandahari artists with the stage names “Zar” and “Chenar,” who used to produce awareness-raising shows, said in their final video that based on Taliban law they are abandoning media activities.

This decision has sparked widespread reactions on social media; some have called it the end of an important process of public awareness, while others have described it as a new example of restrictions on artistic and civic activities.

After the ban on broadcasting serials and entertainment programs on television, social media had remained the only source of income and awareness-raising tool for many artists.

Local sources in Balkh province have also confirmed that the Taliban have banned the publication of images of “living beings” in the province. According to the sources, this decision was implemented by order of the Taliban governor in coordination with the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Since then, Balkh National Television has refrained from broadcasting any images of living beings, and this change has been evident in its recent programs. Sources say that local staff of this media outlet have not produced any visual reports in recent days.