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After the government in Afghanistan fell last year, the darkness was rapidly closing in.

Hundreds of journalists were forced to leave Afghanistan. Many are in hiding, hoping to do the same. Some have tailored their content to ensure they stay on the right side of strict Taliban media guidelinesissued after the group promised to honor a free press. Others who stood defiant have been beaten by threats and violence.

Waliullah Rahmani fears that recent history is being repeated and Afghanistan is once more becoming an invisible, ungoverned space where terrorists thrive and jihadism threatens the security of the world.

It is inevitable, Rahmani said from his own place of safety in northern Europe. You will see the situation of the 1990s repeated. International terrorist organizations will come to Afghanistan, and because there is no one to see them, they will operate freely. And then, if not another 9/11, then somethinga big, big threat to international security will, for sure, take place.

Farshad Fattahi was an investigative reporter in the western city of Herat with independent ASR Television. In late July he went to Kabul for research. While he was away, the Taliban took control of Herat and closed down the station.

He lives in a secret location in the capital, with no money and no income, afraid for his life as the work that was once his living is now his liability. He hasnt been back to Herat, or seen his family, since he left. I am very afraid that my identity will be revealed, and if this happens it will mean big trouble for me, Fattahi said.

Fattahi is just one of the hundreds who have been unable to find a way out of Afghanistan and to safety; vulnerable people like Fattahi are trapped, aware of the consequences of being found by the Taliban.

Almost as soon as they took control, the Taliban began detaining and beating journalists; at least two were beaten so badly after being detained while covering an anti-Taliban protest by women in September that one has lost part of his hearing and eyesight.

Last fall, media regulations were issued, aimed at ensuring the only news fit to print is that which suits the Taliban. News organizations must coordinate with the Taliban, curtailing critical independent reporting.

Human Rights Watch described the new regulations as so vague and sweeping that journalists are self-censoring for fear of falling foul of the Taliban and ending up in prison.

Related: Reporting on Americas longest war

The Talibans return came almost twenty years to the day after the United States invaded Afghanistan, on October 7, 2001, and ended their five-year regime in retaliation for giving sanctuary to Al Qaeda while the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out.

During that time, the Western alliance poured in billions of dollars to create a modern, democratic state. The United States alone invested $1 billion in building media and communications, and was largely paid back with a vibrant sector of dedicated, world-class professionals.

It was a source of pridea bright light shining on a corrupt polity and poorly managed international military and aid efforts. Hundreds of millions of dollars disappeared into the pockets of politicians, businesspeople, community leaders, and aid administrators. Afghanistans journalists played their role in holding them to account. Many reporters, broadcasters, photographers, and camera operators were killed.

In recent years, that independence was challenged by the president, Ashraf Ghani, who fled Afghanistan on August 15, clearing the way for the Taliban. He held media in contempt and followed the lead of Donald Trump in branding criticism of him or his administration fake news to undermine public trust in journalism.

Even before the Talibans return to power, eleven journalists had been killed in Afghanistan in 2021, including Danish Siddiqui, a Pulitzer-winning Indian photographer with Reuters, who was embedded with Afghan Special Forces near the Pakistan border on July 16.

According to unesco, eighty journalists have been killed in Afghanistan since 2005; the worst year was 2018, when nine journalists covering a suicide attack were killed by a second bomb aimed directly at media.

The Taliban campaign against journalists picked up in 2020, after they signed a bilateral deal with Trump that pledged a US military drawdown, to zero, by May 1 of 2021. The deal bypassed and undermined Ghanis government, transforming the insurgents into a legitimate political entity. They declared victory over the Western alliance and ignored the conditions of the deal that applied to them, including cutting ties with Al Qaeda.

Instead, their brutality against Afghan civilians and military intensified, and journalists became specific targets, along with politicians and government officials, human and womens rights advocates, judges, police, and military leaders.

Of the media outlets still operational on August 15, 70 percent have disappeared, Rahmani said. This is natural, because the Taliban have never been tolerant of media; they censor; they dont allow any narrative but their own.

Related: I fled one war, and I was trapped in another

Journalists were among the thousands evacuated in the chaotic international airlift that followed the August 15 Taliban takeover, according to Najib Sharifi, head of the Afghan Journalists Safety Committee. By his own rough estimate, in the weeks following the collapse of the republic, around two hundred journalists had left the country and, he said at the time, at least another three hundred need to get out. They are spread all over the country, he said, though journalists in the provinces are much more under threat now that independent reporting has become a thing of the past.

International media-support organizations have largely failed to provide the help that Afghanistans journalists have needed in a time of extreme distress.

Many who do arrive in Western capitals find that the support they are offered can come with strings attachedconditional, for instance, on applying for asylum and being sucked into the maw of the global refugee bureaucracy, often not permitted to work while their applications are processed, which can take years.

Reporters Without Borders, for instance, was able only to provide journalists with basic information about the asylum process, and explain [to] them which organizations will be able to support them during the asylum process, according to Victoria Lavenue, the organizations head of assistance in Paris.

This presupposed that journalists wished to give up their professional status and enter the refugee bureaucracy, effectively becoming wards of the state, unable to work or live independently, often for years, while their applications for resettlement were processed.

More than a hundred journalists from Afghanistan issued an open letter via Reporters Without Borders begging international organizations to pressure the Taliban to embrace freedom of speech and free media. Their call goes unheeded.

As the new regimes intentions unfurled, Afghanistans media owners adopted differing tactics for survival, some loudly holding on to their journalistic principles, others morphing into what one former news executive called the Talibans propaganda platforms.

Rahmaniwho was already living under extreme threat when the republic fellwent into hiding immediately after the Taliban entered Kabul. His website, Kharbanama, and Reporterly, a daily subscription roundup of significant news on Afghanistan, went silent until Rahmani reemerged in late September in northern Europe. He rebranded and relaunched the newsletter as Brevity. Now he needs to find his way to an English-speaking country where he can continue workingand avoid the asylum trap.

Its a different story for ToloNews, owned by the Moby Group, which was established in 2003 and funded largely by American taxpayers, with startup money from the US Agency for International Development. It pioneered 24-hour TV news, as well as entertainment programming. Its owner, Saad Mohseni, has been compared to Rupert Murdochand attended the Australian moguls recent star-studded birthday party.

Immediately after the Taliban entered the capital, Tolo management tried to preempt their clampdown and ordered women presenters to, first, stay at home and then, when they were allowed back to work, to alter their dress to appear more conservative, as Farid Ahmad, the stations former deputy operations director, wrote in an article for Newsweek.

Former Tolo journalists said they were directly threatened by the Taliban. Some spent weeks working, eating and sleeping in their offices in the Moby compound in central Kabul as Taliban gunmen repeatedly visited their homes, searching for them by name.

Many Tolo employees were evacuated from Kabul immediately after the capital fell. They are now scattered around the world, in Pakistan, Qatar, Mexico, Turkey, and Albania, waiting for resettlement. Many received an email from Tolo immediately after they left Afghanistan terminating their employment. Many said they have not received their August salary. Many more are desperate to leave.

While Tolos owners had made an obvious effort to stay on the right side of the Talibaneven while requesting funding from the State Department to relocate operations outside Afghanistanone crusading daily newspaper tried to stick to its journalistic principles. Etilaatrozmade its reputation revealing the filthy underbelly of Afghanistans powerful and connected. In the days after August 15, when anti-Taliban protests erupted in major cities, its coverage was as hard-hitting as usual, with editors and journalists alike vowing that their mission to uphold freedom of speech would not be compromised.

And then, on September 8, video journalist Nemat Naqdi and photojournalist Taqi Daryabi drew global attention for the injuries they sustained under Taliban torture. They were detained while covering a womens rights demonstration in Kabul and held for two days. Publisher and editor Zaki DaryabiTaqis brothersaid Naqdi has lost 40 percent of the sight in one eye and needs surgery to repair a burst eardrum.

Zaki Daryabi, who won Transparency Internationals Anti-Corruption 2020 award, said that Etilaatroz now publishes just a few news stories a day, having decided that the hard-hitting investigations into official graft that made its reputation would risk further violent reaction from the Taliban.

Zaki left Afghanistan in mid-October, forced to flee his homeland, he said, in fear for his life under threat from the Taliban.

TOP IMAGE: (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

Read more from the original source:
What happened to Afghanistan's journalists after the government collapsed - Columbia Journalism Review

The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan was dubbed a monumental security challenge for the international community. A humanitarian crisis ensued, with millions of Afghans plunged into poverty, and the country's economy began to collapse.

Major world powersscrambled to tackle the situation, and efforts were made to ensure Afghanistan's stability and put pressure on the country's new Islamic fundamentalist rulers.

Seven months later, Afghanistan is no longer a main concern for Western powers, as they shift their focus to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Observers say the Taliban see it as an opportunity to implement their hard-line policies in the country, knowing that the international community is "busy elsewhere."

Tamim Asey, the executive chairman of Kabul's Institute of War and Peace Studies and a visiting research fellow at King's College London, told DW that he believes "a lack of international interest" in Afghanistan's crisis could pave the way for terror groups and criminal networks to regather and regain strength.

"Unfortunately, Afghanistan has taken a backseat. This will push Afghanistan further into turmoil and will provide an opportunity fortransnational criminal networks to recover," he told DW.

Few in the West see an immediate security threat emanating from Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban are seeking to gain international recognition and financial aid and have been more inclined toward a "diplomatic" approach than employing violent tactics.

But experts say this superficial calm may not last for long.

"History tells us that humanitarian crises could lead to violent conflicts. It is easier for terrorist groups to operate in a country that is facing economic turmoil. Afghanistan is no exception," Shamroz Khan Masjidi, an Afghan political analyst, told DW.

If the humanitarian crisis is aggravated in Afghanistan, even the Taliban won't be able to manage the situation, as evidenced by recent violent attacks by theIslamic State group.

Salahuddin Ludin, a political expert in Afghanistan, told DW that life has become "extremely difficult" for most Afghans.

"International aid organizations have left the country. The Taliban are unable to pay the wages to government employees. The public health care sector is in a disarray," he pointed out.

Apart from the suffering of the rural population, even Afghans based in cities are finding it impossible to make ends meet.

Ludin said many Afghans had put their savings in bank accounts: "Now, they cannot access them. Afghan businessmen, for instance, cannot make international transfers, which has resulted in high commodity prices in the country."

The Taliban have been demanding that the United States releaseAfghanistan's frozen assets so that they can tackle the worsening economic crisis. Washington has refused to hand over the money to them, which means that Afghanistan's Islamist rulers could look for "financial aid" from "non-state actors," say experts.

Sardar Mohammad Rahman Ughelli, Afghanistan's former ambassador to Ukraine, says the world is already "forgetting" about the Afghanistan crisis.

"Even the international media is not covering the crisis in Afghanistan," he said, adding that the Taliban are now free to implement their regressive policies in the country.

Some observers say the current situationis disturbingly similar to the geopolitical scenario in the late 1990s. The Taliban seized power in 1996, but the international community did not fully grasp the potential consequences of the new paradigm.

Away from the global spotlight and with a lack of world interest in Afghan affairs the country became a hub of local and international militant groups.

"The Taliban have ties with international terrorists. Their return to power has emboldened jihadi organizations in the region. As they consolidate themselves, their tactical and strategic ties with terrorism financiers and sponsors will grow and will eventually jeopardize peace and security in the region and beyond," Farid Amiri, a former Afghan government official, told DW.

Tariq Farhadi, an adviser to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, agrees with this view. "The international community forgot about Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 during the Taliban's first regime. It is possible that it will be forgotten again," he added.

The longer the Taliban stay in power, Amiri said, the more difficult will it get to maintain stability in the region.

"Regional powers will start supporting proxies to keep the violence within Afghanistan's boundaries. But it will only be a short-term solution to the Afghan conflict," Amiri said.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Go here to see the original:
Ukraine war: Why the West cannot afford to ignore Afghanistan - DW (English)

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (March 17, 2022) An Afghan mother agreed to sell her unborn baby as the country's economic crisis forces jobless, debt-stricken parents to abandon their children, Save the Children said.

Stories like these are becoming too common in Afghanistan as destitute parents resort to increasingly desperate measures to survive. In a recent survey, Save the Children spoke to 30 families who had exchanged a child for debt, and analysis by the aid agency suggests that as many as 121,000 children could have been exchanged across the country since August 2021.

Nosheen*, 36, lives with her husband and their five children in Afghanistan's northern province of Jawzjan. She is pregnant with their sixth child, but her husband, Aziz*, told her they had no choice but to sell the unborn child.

"Sad doesn't even come close to how I feel," said Nosheen. "If you lose a needle, you will be sad. This is my child. Of course, I will be sad."

Aziz*, 47, explained they were offered approximately USD $565 for their unborn baby, which would allow the family to repay a considerable portion of their debt.

"We are in a very bad situation," he said. "We have nothing to eat in the house. Every day I go to the city center to work. I hardly earn enough money for a few pieces of bread. Most days I can't find work. So I decided that, as I have five children, I will sell our unborn child so that the others can survive and don't die of hunger."

The collapse of the economy and the ongoing fallout from last year's drought have triggered an unprecedented food crisis in Afghanistan. The majority of families have lost some or all of their incomes and are unable to afford the rising cost of food, and as the war in Ukraine increases the cost of commodities around the world, there's a risk that the cost of living in Afghanistan could rise even further.

Save the Children's survey found that 96% of families are eating a very limited variety of foods or foods they do not want to eat, and more than half of adult respondents (52%) reported that their children were showing visible signs of malnutrition, such as thinning or stunted growth.

Like many families in Afghanistan, Nosheen and Aziz* have resorted to borrowing money to feed their children, and they are now in debt.

"I have borrowed 70,000 Afghanis (approximately $809) for food," said Aziz*, "Today, people knocked at the door asking for their money. Being in debt is worse than being hungry because they demand the money every day, but I don't have money to pay.

"We wait for someone to bring us a few pieces of bread; if not, we go hungry the whole day or night. I struggle hard to find work so that my children don't go hungry."

Save the Children has been supporting the family with cash assistance and has since convinced the family not to go ahead with the sale of their child. In addition, the agency's child protection team will continue to visit the family regularly to ensure the child is safe and protected after it is born.

The foreign aid that once propped up Afghanistan has been slow to return after governments and international financial institutions cut funding and froze Afghanistan assets in the wake of last year's transition of power. Save the Children is calling for the international community to urgently find solutions to unfreeze financial assets to restart the Afghan economy and warned that the measures are worsening the humanitarian crisis.

**Save the Children's Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, Athena Rayburn, **said:

"The tragic lengths that parents are going to; to keep their children alive tells you just how dire the situation is getting in Afghanistan. Organizations like ours are doing everything they can to support families who have lost everything, but with the economy at a standstill, Afghan families are sinking into quicksand.

"While the world's attention is on the plight of refugees fleeing Ukraine, we must not forget the people of Afghanistan. Funds are urgently needed to keep children alive and with their families. However, there is no amount of aid that can replace a functioning economy. Until we address the economic crisis, families will have no other option but to make desperate, life-altering decisions in order to survive."

Save the Children is providing families with urgent cash assistance, which helps to prevent families from resorting to desperate measures like giving up their children, marrying their daughters, or cutting back on meals.

At a recent cash distribution for struggling families, one mother, Fatima*, told Save the Children's team: "I have six children. I was even considering selling them because I can't afford to provide for them. We haven't paid the rent for the house for two months now. The owner warned us that he will throw us out into the snow. Getting this cash will save me from selling my child."

Since September, the agency has reached 913,000 people -- including 508,000 children -- and provided more than 155,000 people with cash transfers. It is also identifying children who are at risk of neglect, exploitation, violence, or abuse, and works with their families to come up with long-term solutions to ensure they are kept safe and have their rights protected.

Read more here:
Afghanistan: Desperate mother agreed to sell her unborn baby as debt-ridden families are pushed to crisis point - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb

The risk of armed conflict remains low; however, the declining economic situation continues to drive criminality.The de-facto authorities carried out door to door search operations in February, including at NGO compounds,in a claimed attempt to seek out criminal activity.

Public universities reopened in February for both male and female students. The Ministry of Education alsoannounced that girls will be returning to secondary schools at the end of March, after more than six months of girlsbeing forced out of school.

8 polio health workers were killed at the end of February in Kunduz and Takhar provinces, forcing thesuspension of the vaccination campaign in these provinces. This suspension leaves thousands of childrenunprotected and exposed to a life-threatening disease.

Two thirds of the population are resorting to crisis-level coping strategies to feed themselves, like skipping mealsand pulling children out of school to work. An estimated 1 million children are engaged in child labour currently.

$1 billion is set to be released from the ARTF to UN and INGO agencies to fund education agriculture, healthand family programs in Afghanistan. $280m was already released from this fund to WFP and UNICEF at the endof 2021. At the beginning of February, the US also announced the release of half of Afghanistans $7billionfrozen assets. The other half will remain available pending legal litigation related to 9/11 victims.

Go here to see the original:
Save the Children's Response in Afghanistan - Afghanistan - ReliefWeb

Goldberg's op ed piece from March 7 was interesting and a worthwhile read but I must take issue with his slamming of President Joe for the Afghanistan fiasco. Goldberg and most every other pundit and arm chair expert have piled on to President Joe over his handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I contend that it is grossly unfair and inaccurate to pin all the blame on Biden. Over 20 years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, billions of taxpayer dollars poured into arming and training the Afghan military. Many precious American lives were lost defending Afghanistan. And yet the Afghan armed forces melted like snow in spring when the going got tough. If Afghans refuse to fight for their own country and countrymen -- why should another American tax dollar be spent or another precious American life be lost fighting for them? Also I contend that countless mistakes were made over the 20 years that contributed to the debacle. Shouldering Biden with all the blame is both unfair and inaccurate.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

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Link:
Letter: exit from afghanistan | Letters to the Editor - Arizona Daily Star