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Record number of journalists currently jailed worldwide

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(Last Updated On: December 14, 2022)

A record total of 533 journalists are currently detained worldwide, according to the annual round-up of violence and abuses against journalists published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The number of those killed has also increased this year – to 57– while 65 journalists are being held hostage and 49 are missing.

Last year’s record has been broken again. The total of 533 journalists being held in connection with their work on 1 December was 13.4% higher than last year’s figure. RSF has also never previously seen so many women journalists in detention.

A total of 78 are currently held, a record-breaking rise of nearly 30% compared to 2021. Women now account for nearly 15% of detained journalists, compared to fewer than 7% five years ago, RSF said.

China, where censorship and surveillance have reached extreme levels, continues to be the world’s biggest jailer of journalists, with a total of 110 currently being held.

Also a sign of major repression, the Islamic Republic of Iran, with 47 detainees, became the world’s third biggest jailer of journalists just one month after the onset of massive protests. Among the first journalists detained were two women, Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who had helped draw attention to the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. They now face the death penalty.

The number of journalists killed has also risen. A total of 57 paid with their lives for their commitment to report the news in 2022 – an 18.8% increase compared to 2021, after a two-year period of relative calm and historically low figures, RSF reported.

The war that broke out in Ukraine on 24 February 2022 is one of the reasons for this rise. Eight journalists were killed in the first six months of the war. Among them were Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photojournalist who was deliberately shot by Russian soldiers on 13 March, and Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, a French video reporter for the TV news channel BFMTV, who was killed by shrapnel from an exploding shell while covering the evacuation of civilians.

The 2022 round-up also reports that at least 65 journalists and media workers are currently being held hostage. They include Olivier Dubois, a French reporter who has been held for more than 20 months by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), an armed group in Mali affiliated with al-Qaeda, and Austin Tice, an American journalist abducted nearly 10 years ago in Syria. Furthermore, two more journalists were reported missing in 2022, bringing the total number of journalists currently missing to 49.

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Almost 700 people including ex-govt officials officially return home: commission

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(Last Updated On: October 1, 2023)

The Commission for Contact with Afghan Personalities says nearly 700 officials of the previous government, politicians, members of the National Council and some experts have returned to Afghanistan since the establishment of the commission early last year.

“Six hundred and eighty people from different countries have returned to the country,” said the commission’s spokesman, Ahmadullah Wasiq.

He stated that among these people are former officials of the old government who worked in various ministries and departments.

He added that currently, a large number of personalities, including politicians and high-ranking officials of the former government, have received application forms to return to the country through this commission, and will come home soon.

“We have distributed hundreds of forms [to them] and our wish is that in the near future many of the people will return to the country, so for now this process is going very well,” Wasiq added.

A number of those who have returned to the country, however, are demanding some changes to the commission, adding that the caretaker government should make effective use of the cadres and experts who return and provide them with work opportunities.

“The method of this process should be changed, such as communicating with experts or elites or politicians. Second, when these people come to Afghanistan, they should be provided with work,” said Amanullah Ghalib, former head of Breshna Sherkat, who also returned to the country recently.

Officials have repeatedly requested Afghans living abroad, including politicians and officials of the previous government, to return to their homeland and continue their normal lives in Afghanistan in accordance with the general amnesty issued by the Islamic Emirate’s supreme leader.

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Afghan embassy in India announces it will cease operations from Oct. 1

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(Last Updated On: October 1, 2023)

The embassy of Afghanistan in India’s capital New Delhi will cease operations from Oct. 1, due to a lack of support from India and a reduction in personnel and resources, the embassy said in a statement on social media platform X.

The embassy also said a failure to meet expectations in serving Afghanistan’s interests is another key factor in shutting of the embassy.

“Given these circumstances, it is with deep regret that we have taken the difficult decision to close all operations of the mission with the exception of emergency consular services to Afghan citizens till the transfer of the custodial authority of the mission to the host country,” the embassy said in the statement dated Sept. 30.

In its announcement, the Afghan Embassy also cited challenges like shortage of both personnel and resources available. “The lack of timely and sufficient support from visa renewal for diplomats to other critical areas of cooperation led to an understandable frustration among our team and impeded our ability to carry out routine duties effectively,” the statement read.

The embassy also refuted any “baseless claims” regarding internal strife or discord among its diplomatic staff or any diplomats using the crisis to seek asylum in a third country.

Reuters had reported on Friday that the Afghan embassy in India suspended all operations after the ambassador and other senior diplomats left the country for Europe and the United States where they gained asylum.

India does not recognise the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) as government, and closed its own embassy in Kabul after the IEA took control in 2021, but New Delhi had allowed the ambassador and mission staff appointed by the Western-backed government of ousted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to issue visas and handle trade matters.

 

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Muttaqi meets Chinese, Pakistani envoys on sidelines of Moscow format

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(Last Updated On: September 30, 2023)

Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met with the special representatives to Afghanistan from China and Pakistan, Yue Xiaoyong and Asif Durrani respectively, on the sidelines of the Moscow format meeting.

The Foreign Ministry’s deputy spokesperson Hafiz Zia Ahmad Takal said on X that during the meeting, national relations, common interests, and threats to Afghanistan, Pakistan and China were discussed in detail.

Muttaqi told Pakistan’s special representative for Afghanistan that if problems arise, instead of media statements, efforts should be made to solve them through diplomatic means.

Takal added that during the meeting the Chinese side pledged that it is ready to increase its assistance to Afghanistan in a number of areas.

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