Afghan Journalists in Exile: “Like Swimming in a Swamp”
Reporters working in the diaspora face major challenges, despite huge efforts to ensure reporting from within the country continues.
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Afghanistan: Journalism Amid the Darkness
Despite brutal repression, independent outlets continue to provide a rare and precious source of information.
Before the Afghanistan fell to the Taleban in August, 2021, Fereshteh (not her real name) worked as a journalist for Tolo News, the country’s first 24-hour news channel.
Having fled to the Pakistani capital Islamabad, she found work for an Afghan television station based in the US which focused on political and news programming.
Although so far she has managed to support her family of four, she compares her life to “swimming in a swamp” that required every ounce of her daily strength.
“And yet, even that, at times, could be easier than being an exiled Afghan journalist facing dangerous and impossible conditions,” she said, noting that she was working illegally because she did not have a work permit.
“I am dealing with a double-edged sword; on one side is the Pakistani police, and on the other, the Taleban in Afghanistan.”
Despite the challenges, Fereshteh said that she nonetheless tried to maintain fair and factual standards of reporting. She was in frequent contact with Taleban spokesmen, although one recently started rejecting her invitations to participate in programmes.
“Your station is biased,” he told her.
Exiled Afghan journalists continue to face major difficulties in continuing their work, despite huge efforts by diaspora media outlets to ensure reporting from within the country continues.
It is estimated that, nearly 2,000 journalists have left Afghanistan since the Taleban took power in 2021. Many sought asylum in Europe and North America, while others settled in Afghanistan's neighbouring countries, such as Pakistan, sometimes as undocumented immigrants.
“The voice of the people in Afghanistan has been silenced, independent journalism no longer exists, and the flow of information is certainly not free,” said Sumiya Walizadeh, an investigative journalist now living in Turkey.
Lotfollah Najafizadeh is the founder of Amu TV, a media company headquarted in Virginia in the US that aims to provide a source of independent information from Afghanistan in both Dari and Pastho languages. He said that the Taleban had purposefully created huge obstacles to prevent this “journalism in exile” with the aim of ultimately preventing the stories of ordinary people being heard.
Previously, although facing multiple challenges, the media scene in Afghanistan had been thriving. Before the Taleban takeover, journalists had access to government officials, were regularly invited to press conferences and meetings and could contact and quote sources without fear of jeopardising their safety.
Journalists no longer have in-person access to government officials, and even when they can reach them on the phone, officials are often unwilling to speak.
“The Taleban won’t tell us anything that would work against them,” said another Afghan journalist located in France, who also wanted to remain anonymous. The 36-year-old works at a newly-established Afghan language television station but said that it was a constant struggle to gain access to even basic information.
Ordinary people still living in Afghanistan are reluctant to give interviews. One female reporter, now living in India, covers Afghan issues for a European radio station.
“People inside Afghanistan are unwilling to speak with the media out of fear of the Taliban,” she said, explaining the lengths that officials went to monitor private communications. “They even look into people’s SIM cards.”
Nonetheless, Najafizadeh said that the number of diaspora outlets was continuing to grow, defying epectations that the Taleban would be successful in their onslaught against the media.
“Within the context of Afghanistan, this is a major success story and a new experience,” he said, adding that Afghan journalists should learn from the experiences of colleagues working in contexts such as in Iran and Ukraine.
“If there were no exile media today, how could the tragedies that happen every day in Afghanistan be documented?” Najafizadeh concluded.
Contacted for comment, Taleban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that there was “a lack of sufficient expertise among spokespersons, which sometimes caused disruptions”.
