RASC News Agency: Local sources in Daikundi province have confirmed that Taliban intelligence operatives have once again arrested three journalists from Radio Nasim one of the province’s last remaining independent media outlets. The arrests took place on the evening of Wednesday, August 6. The detainees include Sultan Ali Jawadi, the station’s editor-in-chief, along with journalists Saifullah Rezai and Mojtaba Qasemi. According to exiled media organizations, Taliban forces stormed the Radio Nasim office without offering any official explanation. In addition to detaining the journalists, the agents also confiscated essential broadcasting equipment, including the station’s main computer.
This is not the first time these journalists have been targeted. In October 2023, the same three were detained under similar opaque circumstances. Jawadi had been sentenced to one year in prison on the charge of “propaganda against the regime” and was released in March 2024 after serving six months. Radio Nasim, once a vital voice for independent journalism in Daikundi, was forcibly shut down by the Taliban in mid-2023. After five months of silence, the station was allowed to resume limited operations under strict Taliban-imposed conditions. The new operational constraints have significantly curtailed its editorial independence.
This recent wave of arrests is emblematic of a broader and more systematic Taliban campaign to silence dissent and dismantle the last remnants of press freedom in Afghanistan. Despite the Taliban’s public assurances at international forums that they respect media freedoms and journalists’ rights, the situation on the ground tells a very different story. Most independent media outlets in the country have been shuttered entirely. Those that remain are subjected to relentless censorship and are forced to broadcast only content approved or dictated by the regime. The handful of journalists who continue to report independently face arbitrary arrests, torture, and long prison sentences. In some instances, even their families have been harassed or threatened.
What remains of Afghanistan’s once-vibrant media landscape has been hollowed out. Independent journalism has been replaced by a tightly controlled propaganda machine, used to echo Taliban narratives and suppress public scrutiny. The role of the press as a watchdog has been effectively extinguished. The re-arrest of Radio Nasim’s journalists is not merely a violation of international human rights and press freedom it is a chilling signal to every remaining journalist in Afghanistan: in a regime where criticism is a crime, even silence can lead to punishment. The complete erosion of press freedom under Taliban rule marks a dangerous regression into authoritarianism. What remains now is not a free press, but a shadow of its former self silenced, surveilled, and subjugated.
