Murdered Reporter Leaves Lasting Legacy

If I am supposed to be killed, I will be killed.” That is how Abdul Samad Rohani summed up the dangers he faced as a BBC reporter in Helmand province, according to his friend and colleague, Aziz Ahmad Shafe.

Threats were an almost daily occurrence for Rohani, whose brutal murder on June 7 has sent shock-waves through the journalistic community in his native Helmand province. (For a report on the killing, see Few Clues to Helmand Journalist’s Killers, No. ARR No. 292, 09-Jun-08.)

For several months, Rohani received frequent telephone calls from the Taleban accusing him of being too hard on them and too kind to their opponents – the Afghan government and its international allies.

“But I would say that I have to be balanced, I have to give all sides of the story,” Rohani told his friend and colleague, Mohammad Ilyas Dayee. “I told them I would present their voices, as well as those of the government and the foreigners.”

Impartiality was not a very high priority for the insurgents – certainly not in the early days.

“They would curse me,” laughed Rohani. “They would say, ‘Are you such a bastard you can’t tell the difference between us and those Americans?’”

The threats eventually reached such a pitch that Rohani was taken out of Helmand for his own safety, to the BBC office in Kabul. But he chafed at being away from his own difficult beat, and was soon back in the south.

He spent a few months in Kandahar, just 120 kilometres from Lashkar Gah, but a lot safer. However, he insisted on going back to Helmand.

“He was such a patriot for his province, and he was after the truth,” said Shafe who, like his friend, works for the BBC. “He just couldn’t stand living in Kandahar, so he came back. I know he was receiving threatening phone calls, because they would often call me by mistake.”

Rohani’s professionalism was such that he eventually won over the Taleban, who, according to local journalists, actively cooperated with the search when he went missing, and condemned his killing after his body was found on June 8.

“We are very, very sorry that he is dead,” Taleban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi told Rahimullah Samander, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists’Association, AIJA. “We do not treat journalists badly. Journalists are impartial people; they are the ones who carry our voice to the world.”

In the past 18 months, Taleban forces in the south have kidnapped two Italian journalists, Gabriele Torsello and Daniele Mastrogiacomo, both of whom were released after some concessions from the Afghan government. They killed Mastrogiacomo’s driver Sayed Agha and his translator Ajmal Naqshbandi.

But despite threats and harassment, no journalists’ deaths have been attributed to the Taleban since the insurgency revived in Helmand two years ago.

IWPR-trained reporters are in regular phone contact with the Taleban, and have negotiated safe passage into insurgent-held areas in order to report sensitive stories on civilian casualties, destruction of property and the burning of schools.

Rohani’s murder has left Helmand’s journalists feeling vulnerable. One has gone into hiding, and others are considering leaving the profession.

For many people, the most worrying aspect of the case is that Rohani was abducted inside Lashkar Gah, an area that is generally held to be government-controlled and safe.

“It is clear that he was picked up during the day, from the heart of the town, in an area that is supposed to be under the government,” said Shafe. “I no longer feel safe in Lashkar Gah.”

Jan Gul, head of information and culture department in the Helmand provincial administration, told IWPR that he does his best to protect local journalists.

“The government has to guarantee the safety of journalists wherever they are working,” he said. “I have told journalists many times, ‘If you feel threatened, don’t hesitate to tell me.’ I can pass their claim on to the security agencies. I have also asked them to let us know if they are thinking of going somewhere dangerous. It is then the government’s responsibility to take care of them.”

But Rohani was not on a risky mission, he was driving inside the capital. And his abductors, in order to get him out of the town centre and over the Helmand river into the more volatile area known as Bolan where his body was found, would have had to pass through at least three police checkpoints.

A statement issued by the Helmand Journalists’ Independent Association on June 9 described these circumstances as “a complete failure of the administration”.

The group has demanded a proper investigation of the murder, and warn that it will take “drastic steps” if this does not materialise.

The AIJA’s Samander told IWPR that his national organisation, too, had also issued a statement demanding that the government launch an intensive investigation.

Rohani’s murder should not be forgotten, said Samander.

“The government has done nothing in such cases before,” he told IWPR. “They are indifferent. If they remain indifferent in this case, we will hold demonstrations, we will knock on the doors of the world. We will go on strike.”

The governor of Helmand, Mohammad Gulab Mangal, promised that Rohani’s killing would receive the attention it deserved.

“I have appointed a six-member commission to investigate this case, and we will find the murderers. I promise we will find them,” he told journalists on June 9.

Helmand’s reporters are feeling the pressure, but are determined to carry on.

“Some of the journalists are getting threatening phone calls,” said Tassal. “If this keeps up, soon there will be no more fingers to hold the pens. Sometimes I say to myself what the hell, just forget about this. But then there is our commitment to society, and what do we do about that? I am going to continue my work.”

Dayee voiced similar feelings, saying, “If the government does not look after journalists, if there’s no guarantee of their safety, then I think we will face serious problems. I am desperate, I’m very worried. That does not mean I will give up my job. I work for the people, for peace, for reconstruction. But my life is important, too, so it’s a real dilemma.”

Jan Gul encouraged journalists to stay the course.

“There is terrorism all over Afghanistan now,” he told IWPR. “But it should not affect journalists’ professional lives. If someone is killed, it does not mean that the others should leave the field. No, they should stay and prove that nothing can make them deviate from their path.”

Much of the sense of fear stems from the fact that Helmand’s journalists have no clear idea who committed the murder, although they suspect that it was not, as the Afghan government said almost immediately, the Taleban.

“We do not know who the enemy is,” said Shafe. “There are people who do whatever they want and blame it on the Taleban. Journalists are under threat, they are vulnerable.”

Many of the journalists interviewed suggested that it was Rohani’s reporting that led to his death.

“I cannot say who the real murderer is. But there are a lot of people who cannot stand criticism,” said Shafe. “There are a lot of people who cannot stand the truth. The murderer is someone who did not like Rohani’s reports, and so had to kill him.”

It seems unlikely that the motive could be found in the journalist’s personal life. He was a calm, quiet, hard-working reporter, living in Lashkar Gah with his second wife and their two children – Zahra, a daughter aged two, and son Emran, just five months old.

According to Tassal, Rohani chose his own last name when he was a student in a madrassa, or religious school, under the Taleban. “Rohani” means “spiritual”.

He became a journalist after the Taleban regime fell in late 2001 and a transitional government was put in place.

A budding poet, he was also a founder and active member of the Bost Cultural Society, a group that brought together Helmand’s literary elite.

Rohani has left two widows. As Tassal put it, Rohani married once out of duty and once out of love. Under Afghan law and by Muslim tradition, a man can have up to four wives.

“His first marriage was arranged by his father,” said Tassal. “But he was always telling me, ‘I want to choose my own wife.’ So he married again.”

Rohani felt a keen sense of responsibility to his country and his province, and was deeply affected by what was happening in Helmand.

“Whenever he received a report from some village about the fighting and killings, he would put his head in his hands and moan, ‘When will this tragedy finish? Will there ever be an end to it?’’ said Dayee.

This level of commitment has inspired his colleagues.

“Even though Rohani was killed, I will continue to do my job,” said Tassal. “I am not more important than Rohani.”

Abaceen Nasimi is an IWPR journalist in Kabul. Hafizullah Gardesh is IWPR’s local editor in Kabul. Aziz Ahmad Shafe, Aziz Ahmad Tassal, and Mohammad Ilyas Dayee are IWPR-trained journalists in Helmand province.