Journalists Shakeeb Ahmad Nazari (top left), Basheer Hatef (bottom left), Mushtaq Ahmad Halimi (middle right), and Ahmad Nawid Asghari (right) were detained by Taliban authorities in July 2025.
Afghan journalists endured ongoing harassment and intimidation from Taliban authorities in July, with the jailing of at least seven media workers. The International Federation of Journalists joins its affiliate, the Afghan Independent Journalists Union (AIJU), in calling for the immediate release of all media workers and an end to the arbitrary detention of media workers.
The arrests were recorded in IFJ monitoring between July 6 to 30. In one incident, three journalists were arrested on July 24 by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The editor in chief of Tawana News Agency and head of the Afghanistan Media Institute, Abuzar Sarempuli, was detained along with two other Tawana journalists, Basheer Hatef and Shakeeb Ahmad Nazari, with authorities alleging Sarempuli received funds from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), UNESCO, and the Iranian government to allegedly promote women’s employment and publish reports critical of the Taliban. He was subsequently charged with moral corruption and espionage with a “confession” filmed and released by the Taliban. The status of all three remains unknown.
On July 15, Pixel Media Content Company’s director and deputy director in Kabul, Ahmad Nawid Asghari and Mushtaq Ahmad Halimi, were taken into custody with the Taliban alleging the pair had dubbed an ‘un-Islamic’ television series for foreign media outlets. Both men allegedly pledged adherence to Taliban media directives on July 28, before being released on July 30. On July 21, an unidentified media worker was detained in Kabul, accused of providing technical support to exiled Afghan news outlets. On July 6, an unnamed provincial journalist was arrestedfor reporting deemed inconsistent with Taliban-approved narratives and released after two days.
In the same period, three journalists held in long-term custody were released. Islam Totakhil and Ahmad Zia Amanyar, from the jointly operated Radio Jawanan and Radio Begum, were released on July 30. They had been detained since January 2025, when the Taliban shuttered both stations and were accused of sharing content on social media about former Afghanistan women cricketers now living in Australia. Radio Khoshhal’s editor-in-chief, Solaiman Rahil, was also released a day later, on July 31 after being arrested on May 5 for posting a video on Facebook about two impoverished women which allegedly criticised a senior Taliban media official.
The use of arbitrary detainment and the intimidation of journalists by the Taliban by the threat of jail has been a frequent tool of the Taliban, with IFJ’s South Asia Press Freedom Report 2024-25 documenting 28 media worker arrests, between May 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025. The 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranked Afghanistan 178 out of 180 countries, ranking the country worse than North Korea and Iran.
The AIJU welcomed the release of six of the journalists as a positive sign from the Taliban but remained concerned about the other ongoing detentions in the country.
The AIJU said: “AIJU respectfully calls on the authorities of the Islamic Emirate to demonstrate goodwill by facilitating the release of the remaining detainees, many of whom have been in custody for an extended period.”
The IFJ said: “The ongoing jailing of journalists under dubious charges, draconian media directives, and shuttering of independent outlets demonstrate the parlous media environment in Afghanistan. The Taliban should respect media rights and cease the jailing and persecution of independent and critical media.”