Afghanistan's fledgling press freedoms face challenges

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published Saturday, May 4, 2002

KABUL, Afghanistan -- With more than 100 newspapers and a new law decreeing freedom of the press, Afghanistan's news media have come a long way in the five months since the Taliban were driven from power.

But even as they celebrated World Press Freedom Day on Friday, journalists complained of threats and censorship from the interim government, and many wondered whether Afghanistan, where literacy is estimated as low as 20 percent, can sustain its mushrooming press.

Under Taliban rule, which ended late last year, there were only a few newspapers -- all controlled by the government. The Taliban banned television and sent female journalists home.

"For five years, they weren't even allowed to listen to the radio," said Hamida Usman, deputy director of Malalai, a women's magazine. "Now everyone is thirsty to read a newspaper."

The government is publishing 35 newspapers, mostly weeklies, according to Abdul Hamid Mobarez, deputy minister of information and culture. He has received applications for 73 private newspapers, but conceded there might be more.

Alexandre Plichon, coordinator of the nongovernmental Afghan Media and Culture Center, estimated Kabul alone has 140 newspapers -- "too many," he said.

"Most of these publications will be dead within three months," he said.

Plichon said the main problem is money. Afghanistan's largest newspaper, Kabul Weekly, sells for about 8 cents, but printing costs alone are 69 cents a copy. The rest, for now, is paid by media aid groups.

Some journalists complain of censorship.

The government passed a law in February decreeing freedom of the press. While the law, mostly borrowed from a 1964 constitution, is in many ways progressive, one clause bans coverage of "subjects that could offend Islam," "subjects that could dishonor the people" or "subjects that could weaken the army of Afghanistan."

"The operative word here is 'could,"' said Rohan Jayasekera, the Kabul representative for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting.

He cited one magazine whose application for a license was rejected because it listed religion among its topics of interest.

Still, Mobarez, from the Ministry of Information and Culture, said there is no censorship.

"Our journalists are all free. We don't censor. We don't control," he said.

Breshna Nazari, deputy editor of Kabul Weekly, strongly disagrees. In its April 25 issue, his newspaper published an article about Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the deputy defense minister, proposing a government with greater regional autonomy.

Nazari said Mobarez told him that if he publishes another such story, the government will shut down his newspaper. Mobarez confirmed he reprimanded Nazari.

"They have the right to write about any idea. The exception is the integrity of Afghanistan, the security of Afghanistan and the independence of Afghanistan. We can't tolerate that," Mobarez said.

The government also intervened after a reporter from Kabul Television asked about a border dispute during a news conference with interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Karzai cut off journalist Mohammed Kabir Omarzai before he could finish his question.

The following day, Omarzai said, Information Minister Raheen Makhdoom called him, asking: "Who allowed you to ask that kind of question?"

"I answered, 'The freedom of press law.' He said, 'This freedom is not for you,' and he hung up," Omarzai said.

The minister was traveling on Friday, and Mobarez said only that he doubted the minister would have spoken like that. Mobarez added, however, that "this wasn't so good a question. It created some trouble."

Omarzai said he was pulled from covering a trip by Karzai to Turkey, and has since received only poor assignments.

"There is no freedom of the press in Afghanistan. I am the example," he said.

The government news media continue to dominate the press. Bakhtar, the government wire service, also writes the scripts for government television and radio news.

The agency -- and 80 percent of its journalists -- worked throughout the Taliban years, and it has been slower than the independent news media in moving toward independent journalism.

"Now I think we are free -- not completely, but in some stage," said Khaleel Menawee, Bakhtar's deputy director. "Sometimes we are forced to publish news which in fact is not news. If we don't publish that news, maybe we are dismissed from our posts."

Other agency problems include no working computers, no long-distance phones, only one car for 100 journalists. Most reporters' desks are empty.

Asked how he works, Najibullah, 41, reached into a drawer and pulled out a browning jumble of what appeared to be calculator paper.

"We don't have any equipment, not even a typewriter," said Najibullah, who goes by one name. "We write the news by hand."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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