Protect Journalists Under Threat in Afghanistan

“The honour of this prize belongs to my brave and courageous colleagues on the ground who worked for seven months all across the country to collect and verify each case. I would also like to thank Internews for your continued support for Hasht e Subh. Without your support it would be very difficult to continue the work we do.” 

-- Journalist at 8 AM Media, long-time Internews Afghan partner, and winner of an Emmy award for his reporting with The New York Times on the Taliban’s retaliatory actions against former Afghan security. 

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A report published earlier this year by The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project found that journalists are “among the most targeted groups in the Taliban’s Afghanistan – creating further challenges for documenting violence in the country under the new regime.” 

Two years after the Taliban's sweep to power in August 2021, Afghan Journalists remain committed to delivering vital information—but by doing so, they and their families become targets for physical attacks, arrests, intrusive surveillance, and censorship. Journalists have been forced to resign, flee the country, or have fallen victim to arbitrary arrests. The Taliban has carried out over 80% of the 70 recorded attacks on journalists and media workers since the fall of Kabul. 

Female journalists are persecuted by the Taliban's gender-based discriminatory regime and are especially in danger of physical and digital attacks, and newsrooms have even been shut down for holding trainings for both male and female journalists. Only 10 female-led outlets remain of the initial 54 operating before the fall of Kabul. The Taliban have also begun targeting platforms on social media, where citizens have turned to share information amidst dwindling media coverage, further isolating the entire Afghan information ecosystem. 

Despite new and evolving challenges, Internews’ work to support independent media in Afghanistan continues. We are especially proud of our a longtime partner at 8 AM Media, who recently won an Emmy award for his reporting with The New York Times on the Taliban’s retaliatory actions against former Afghan security. As one of Afghanistan’s leading newspapers prior to the 2021 Taliban takeover and now operating as an exiled media outlet, 8 AM Media is a long-standing partner of Internews. 

The Afghan media are a“beacon of hope” according to the US Institute for Peace—and Internews has seen it firsthand. We have been in Afghanistan for two decades, working alongside Afghan journalists, media entrepreneurs, and technologists as they fostered a media sector that, at its height, employed thousands of women, reached every province, and became one of the most trusted institutions in the country. 

As ever, we will stand by independent Afghan media as they face today’s new–and increasingly difficult–challenges.