Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Taliban to provide immediate guarantees for the freedom and safety of women journalists in Afghanistan, where a new media landscape is emerging from which they are missing.

This is in spite of Taliban assurances that press freedom would be respected and women journalists would be allowed to keep working.

The Taliban has announced an all-male caretaker government three weeks after taking over Kabul and the move has been criticised by UN Women as sending “the wrong signal” for a promised inclusive administration.

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What with incidents involving Afghan women journalists since the Taliban takeover on August 15 and orders to respect Islamic laws, an RSF investigation has established that fewer than 100 women journalists are still formally working in privately-owned radio and TV stations in the Afghan capital.

According to a survey by RSF and its partner organisation, the Centre for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists (CPAWJ), Kabul had 108 media outlets with a total of 4940 employees in 2020.

They included 1080 female employees, of whom 700 were journalists.

Of the 510 women who used to work for eight of the biggest media outlets and press groups, only 76 (including 39 journalists) are still currently working.

Disappearing from Kabul
In other words, women journalists are in the process of disappearing from the capital.

“Taliban respect for the fundamental right of women, including women journalists, to work and to practice their profession is a key issue,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“Women journalists must be able to resume working without being harassed as soon as possible, because it is their most basic right, because it is essential for their livelihood, and also because their absence from the media landscape would have the effect of silencing all Afghan women.

“We urge the Taliban leadership to provide immediate guarantees for the freedom and safety of women journalists.”

Most women journalists have been forced to stop working in the provinces, where almost all privately-owned media outlets ceased operating as the Taliban forces advanced.

A handful of these women journalists are still more or less managing to work from home, but there is no comparison with 2020, when the survey by RSF and the CPAWJ established that more than 1700 women were working for media outlets in three provinces (the provinces of Kabul, Herat and Balkh, in the east, west and north of the country).

The illusion of normality lasted only a few days. Forty-eight hours after the Taliban took control of the capital, women reporters with privately-owned TV channels such as Tolonews, Ariana News, Kabul News, Shamshad TV and Khurshid TV had dared to resume talking on the air and going out to cover events.

Media executives harassed
But media executives quickly found that they were being harassed. Nahid Bashardost, a reporter for the independent news agency Pajhwok, was beaten by Taliban while doing a report near Kabul airport on 25 August.

Other tearful women journalists described how Taliban guards stationed outside their media prevented them from going out to cover stories.

Women journalists speaking on the air in the studio are tolerated almost as little as they are reporting in the field.

A woman journalist working for a radio station in the southeastern province of Ghazni said that, two days after the Taliban took control of her province, they visited the station and warned: “You are a privately-owned radio station. You can continue, but without any woman’s voice and without music.”

It is the same in Kabul. A Taliban has replaced a female anchor at state-owned Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), who was told to “stay at home for a few days.”

Another female anchor was denied entry to the building. RTA employed 140 women journalists until mid-August.

Now, none of them dares to go back to work at the state TV channels, which are now under Taliban control.

Stay-at-home advice
Executives and editors with privately-owned media outlets that have not already decided to stop operating confirm that, under pressure, they have advised their women journalist to stay at home.

Zan TV (Dari for “Woman TV”) and Bano TV (Dari for “Mrs TV”) have ceased all activity since August 15.

These two privately owned TV channels employed 35 and 47 women journalists, respectively.

One of these journalists said: “It was the perfect job for me. I wanted to help women. Now I don’t know if I will ever be able to go back to work.”

Deprived of her job and salary, she now faces the prospect of extreme economic hardship, like many other women journalists.

Despite undertakings from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid that women would be able to “return to work in a few days,” no measure to this effect has been announced, forcing hundreds of women journalists to stay at home, dreading an uncertain future.

On August 24, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said: “A fundamental red line will be the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls, and respect for their rights to liberty, freedom of movement, education, self-expression and employment, guided by international human rights norms.”

Afghanistan was ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index that RSF published in April.

Asia Pacific Report collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

Publicly, the Taliban have undertaken to protect journalists and respect press freedom but the reality in Afghanistan is completely different, says Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The new authorities are already imposing very harsh constraints on the news media even if they are not yet official, reports RSF on its website.

The list of new obligations for journalists is getting longer by the day. Less than a week after their spokesman pledged to respect freedom of the press “because media reporting will be useful to society,” the Taliban are subjecting journalists to harassment, threats and sometimes violence.

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“Officially, the new Afghan authorities have not issued any regulations, but the media and reporters are being treated in an arbitrary manner,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.

“Are the Taliban already dropping their masks? We ask them to guarantee conditions for journalism worthy of the name.”

Privately-owned Afghan TV channels that are still broadcasting in the capital are now being subjected to threats on a daily basis.

Reporters branded ‘takfiri’
A producer* working for one privately-owned national channel said: “In the past week, the Taliban have beaten five of our channel’s reporters and camera operators and have called them ‘takfiri’ [tantamount to calling them ‘unbelievers’, in this context].

“They control everything we broadcast. In the field, the Taliban commanders systematically take the numbers of our reporters and tell them: ‘When you prepare this story, you will say this and say that.’

“If they say something else, they are threatened.”

Many broadcasters have been forced to suspend part of their programming because Kabul’s new masters have ordered them to respect the Sharia — Islamic law.

“Series and broadcasts about society have been stopped and instead we are just broadcasting short news bulletins and documentaries from the archives,” said a commercial TV channel representative, who has started to let his beard grow as a precaution and now wears traditional dress.

The owner of a privately-owned radio station north of Kabul confirmed that the Taliban are progressively and quickly extending their control over news coverage.

‘They began “guiding” us’
“A week ago, they told us: ‘You can work freely as long as you respect Islamic rules’ [no music and no women], but then they began ‘guiding’ us about the news that we could or could not broadcast and what they regard as ‘fair’ reporting,” said the owner, who ended up closing his radio station and going into hiding.

Two journalists working for the privately-owned TV channel Shamshad were prevented by a Taliban guard from doing a report outside the French embassy because they lacked a permit signed by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

But when they asked the guard where they should go or who they should ask for such a permit, he said, “I don’t know.”

In the past few days, the Taliban have ordered the most influential Afghan broadcast media to broadcast Taliban propaganda video and audio clips.

When media outlets object, “the Taliban say it is just publicity and they are ready to pay for it to be broadcast, and then they insist, referring to our national or Islamic duty,” a journalist said.

Incidents are meanwhile being reported in the field, and at least 10 journalists have been subjected to violence or threats while working in the streets of Kabul and Jalalabad in the past week.

The Taliban spokesman announced on Twitter on August 21 that a tripartite committee would be created to “reassure the media”. Consisting of representatives of the Cultural Commission and journalists’ associations, and a senior Kabul police officer, the committee’s official purpose will be to “address the problems of the media in Kabul.”

What will its real purpose be?

100 private media outlets suspend operations
The pressure is even greater in the provinces, far from the capital. Around 100 privately-owned local media outlets have suspended operations since the Taliban takeover.

All privately-owned Tolonews TV’s local bureaus have closed.

In Mazar-i-Sharif, the fourth largest city, journalists have been forced to stop working and the situation is very tense.

One national radio station’s terrified correspondent said: “Here in the south, I have to work all the time under threat from the Taliban, who comment on everything I do. ‘Why did you do that story? And why didn’t you ask us for our opinion?’ they say. They want comment on all the stories.”

The head of a radio station in Herat province that had many listeners before the Taliban takeover said the same.

He also reported that, at meeting with media representatives on August 17, the province’s new governor told them he was not their enemy and that they would define the new way of working together.

While all the journalists remained silent, the governor then quoted a phrase from the Sharia that that sums up Islam’s basic practices. He said: “The Sharia defines everything: ‘Command what is good, forbid what is evil.’ You just have to apply it.”

The radio station director added: “After that, most of my colleagues left the city and those of us who stayed must constantly prove that what we broadcast commands what is good and forbids what is evil.”

Foreign correspondents work ‘normally‘
Foreign correspondents still in Kabul have not yet been subjected to these dictates and are managing to work in an almost normal manner. But for how much longer?

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s Youth and Information Department issued this message to foreign journalists on August 21: “Before going into the field and recording interviews with IEA fighters and the local population, they should coordinate with the IEA or otherwise face arrest.”

“There are no clear rules at the moment and we have no idea what will happen in the future,” said a Swiss freelancer who has stayed in Kabul.

Another foreign reporter said: “The honeymoon is not yet over. We are benefitting from the fact that the Taliban are still seeking some legitimacy, and the arrival of the big international TV stations in the past few days is protecting us.

“The real problems will start when we are on our own again.”

*The anonymity of all Afghan and foreign journalists quoted in this RSF news release has been preserved at their request and for security reasons, given the climate of fear currently reigning in Afghanistan. Many of the journalists contacted by RSF said they did not want to be quoted at all, because they have no way of leaving Afghanistan.

As the Taliban has taken control of the country, Afghanistan has again become an extremely dangerous place to be a woman.

Even before the fall of Kabul on Sunday, the situation was rapidly deteriorating, exacerbated by the planned withdrawal of all foreign military personnel and declining international aid.

In the past few weeks alone, there have been many reports of casualties and violence. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.

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The United Nations Refugee Agency says about 80 percent of those who have fled since the end of May are women and children.

What does the return of the Taliban mean for women and girls?

The history of the Taliban
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, enforcing harsh conditions and rules following their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Under their rule, women had to cover themselves and only leave the house in the company of a male relative. The Taliban also banned girls from attending school, and women from working outside the home. They were also banned from voting.

Women were subject to cruel punishments for disobeying these rules, including being beaten and flogged, and stoned to death if found guilty of adultery. Afghanistan had the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.

The past 20 years
With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the situation for women and girls vastly improved, although these gains were partial and fragile.

Women now hold positions as ambassadors, ministers, governors, and police and security force members. In 2003, the new government ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which requires states to incorporate gender equality into their domestic law.

The 2004 Afghan Constitution holds that “citizens of Afghanistan, man and woman, have equal rights and duties before the law”. Meanwhile, a 2009 law was introduced to protect women from forced and under-age marriage, and violence.

According to Human Rights Watch, the law saw a rise in the reporting, investigation and, to a lesser extent, conviction, of violent crimes against women and girls.

While the country has gone from having almost no girls at school to tens of thousands at university, the progress has been slow and unstable. UNICEF reports of the 3.7 million Afghan children out of school some 60 percent are girls.

A return to dark days
Officially, Taliban leaders have said they want to grant women’s rights “according to Islam”. But this has been met with great scepticism, including by women leaders in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the Taliban has given every indication they will reimpose their repressive regime.

In July, the United Nations reported the number of women and girls killed and injured in the first six months of the year nearly doubled compared to the same period the year before.

In the areas again under Taliban control, girls have been banned from school and their freedom of movement restricted. There have also been reports of forced marriages.

Women are putting burqas back on and speak of destroying evidence of their education and life outside the home to protect themselves from the Taliban.

As one anonymous Afghan woman writes in The Guardian:

“I did not expect that we would be deprived of all our basic rights again and travel back to 20 years ago. That after 20 years of fighting for our rights and freedom, we should be hunting for burqas and hiding our identity.”

Many Afghans are angered by the return of the Taliban and what they see as their abandonment by the international community. There have been protests in the streets. Women have even taken up guns in a rare show of defiance.

But this alone will not be enough to protect women and girls.

The world looks the other way
Currently, the US and its allies are engaged in frantic rescue operations to get their citizens and staff out of Afghanistan. But what of Afghan citizens and their future?

US President Joe Biden remained largely unmoved by the Taliban’s advance and the worsening humanitarian crisis. In an August 14 statement, he said:

“an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

And yet, the US and its allies — including Australia — went to Afghanistan 20 years ago on the premise of removing the Taliban and protecting women’s rights. However, most Afghans do not believe they have experienced peace in their lifetimes.

Now that the Taliban has reasserted complete control over the country, the achievements of the past 20 years, especially those made to protect women’s rights and equality, are at risk if the international community once again abandons Afghanistan.

Women and girls are pleading for help. We hope the world will listen.

Azadah Raz Mohammad, PhD student, The University of Melbourne and Dr Jenna Sapiano, Australia Research Council postdoctoral research associate and lecturer, Monash Gender Peace & Security Centre, Monash University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.