Taliban intelligence officials recently detained journalist Roman Karimi, radio station owner Jamaluddin Dildar and former radio station owner Mirza Hasani, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Karimi’s driver, who goes by the single name Samiullah, was also nabbed, according to the New York-based group working for free press globally.
However, Karimi and Salimullah were released after seven-hour detention when the journalist was physically assaulted.
Talking to the CPJ over the phone, Karimi said he and Salimullah were in the Haji Yaqub roundabout of Kabul District 10 to cover a protest by Afghan women On May 29.
Suddenly, a Taliban intelligence agent approached Karimi, grabbed his hands, took his phone and voice recorder, and pushed him inside a traffic booth, he added.
Karimi told the CPJ that intelligence agents took him and Salimullah to the 10th directorate of the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) in Kabul.
Upon being questioned about their work, the two were finally released on condition that they would not cover protests or similar events in the future, Karimi said.
The officer, who picked Karimi, slapped him while other agents reviewed the contents of Karimi’s phone, the journalist said.
“The Taliban must immediately release Jamaluddin Dildar and Mirza Hasani and investigate the detention and attack of Roman Karimi and the detention of his driver Samiullah,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Steven Butler. “The recent increase in arbitrary detentions of media workers and journalists mark a disturbing deterioration of press freedom and the ability of the Afghan people to access accurate, timely information.”
Meanwhile, on May 24, the intelligence agents detained Dildar, owner and executive editor of local radio station Radio Saday-e-Gardez, at his office in Gardez city of Paktia province and transferred him to an undisclosed location.
His brother Parwiz Ahmad Dildar said that the radio station has ceased operations since the arrest.
Separately on the same day, the agents detained Hasani, the former owner and editor of Radio Aftab, a local radio station in Daikundi province that stopped operations amid the Taliban takeover last August, at a checkpoint in District 12 of Herat city.
The agents searched Hasani’s phone and, after seeing journalistic posts on his social media accounts, transferred him to the 12th Directorate of Taliban’s GDI in Herat, local journalist Alisher Shahir said.
Hasani was being held on accusations of working as a journalist for anti-Taliban militant group National Resistance Front (NRF), but has not been officially charged, he added.
CPJ contacted Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson, for comment via messaging app but did not receive any response.
Taliban urged to stop harassing journos
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), journalists in Afghanistan are not safe, and violence against them persists. The office calls on the Taliban to stop harassing journalists and end extremely harsh and severe measures.
The UNAMA on Wednesday tweeted asking on the Taliban to release all detained media workers and journalists, and to stop torturing, arbitrarily detaining, and threatening journalists.
In a statement on May 4, a day before the World Press Freedom Day, the UNAMA said they "deplore the erosion of rights for journalists and media institutions under the Taliban."
The Afghan media community then expressed concern over the lack of access to information and the uncertain fate of media in Afghanistan.
Refuting the allegations of imposing restrictions, the Taliban's spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said they support the activities of the media in Afghanistan.
In the last seven months till May, nearly 140 incidents of harassment of Afghan journalists and media workers have been recorded, ToloNews reported citing figures of media-supporting institutions.
According to the Afghanistan Journalists Center, at least 80 journalists have been detained and tortured by the Taliban in the last nine months.
Other figures say over 45% of journalists have quit since the Taliban assumed power, either due to threats or to leave the country.