Slain Afghan journalists remembered
AFGHANISTAN’S slain journalists were remembered on World Press Freedom Day yesterday, days after the deadliest attack on the country’s media since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Ten journalists, including Agence France-Presse chief photographer Shah Marai, were killed in assaults on Monday, underscoring the dangers faced by the media as the war-torn country slips deeper into violence.
“Afghanistan’s journalists are among the bravest in the world,” Amnesty International’s deputy director for South Asia, Omar Waraich, said.
“Working in some of the most difficult conditions, they have faced threats, intimidation and violence for simply doing their jobs.”
A double suicide blast in Kabul on Monday, claimed by the Islamic State group, left 25 people dead including Marai and eight other journalists, while a BBC reporter was killed in a separate attack in eastern Khost province. Media workers from Tolo News, 1TV, Radio Free Europe and Mashal TV were also among the dead in Kabul.
The deadly assaults have shaken Afghanistan’s tight-knit journalist community. Most of them are close friends as well as colleagues who work in an increasingly hostile environment.
But they remain defiant, with dozens of Afghan news editors and executives returning to the site of the Kabul blast hours later on Monday in protest.
“World Press Freedom Day reminds me and my colleagues of the importance of reporting – reporting for a vibrant democracy,” Hasht-e-Subh Daily newspaper editor-in-chief Parwiz Kawa said.
1TV editor-in-chief Abdullah Khenjani said yesterday was a mourning day for the broadcaster, which lost a reporter and cameraman in Monday’s blast.
“Afghan journalists who work in an increasingly hostile environment deserve more support and protection,” Tolo News director Lotfullah Najafizada said.
The British embassy in Kabul also released a statement yesterday vowing to stand behind Afghan journalists, with the UK’s minister for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field, saying their bravery had been noted the world over.
The attack on the Afghan journalists comes amid increasing concerns over press freedom across Asia, including in the Philippines, Myanmar and Pakistan.
Also on Monday, Philippine radio broadcaster Edmund Sestoso was shot by assailants in the southern city of Dumaguete, Human Rights Watch said. Sestoso died on Tuesday. Journalists in Pakistan, where fears of a crackdown are also growing, marked the day with a march in the capital Islamabad, carrying photos of fallen comrades – including those from Afghanistan – with slogans such as “Killed but not silenced”. –