RASC News Agency: The Afghanistan Free Media Support Organization (NAI), now operating in exile, has reported that the Taliban have detained and imprisoned more than 350 journalists and media professionals over the past three and a half years. The organization warns, however, that the real number is likely significantly higher, citing widespread fear, censorship, and a deliberate blackout on accurate reporting from within Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. In a statement issued on Monday, June 23, NAI welcomed the release of Rahim Saeedi, a journalist and producer of visual content, who had been arbitrarily imprisoned for 11 months by the Taliban. However, the organization expressed deep concern that no legal explanation has ever been provided for his arrest, detention, or the conditions he endured while in custody. The lack of transparency, NAI stressed, is part of a broader pattern of repression aimed at dismantling the foundations of press freedom in Afghanistan.
Amnesty International, which also confirmed Saeedi’s release, condemned his arrest as a flagrant violation of human rights. The organization emphasized that Saeedi was targeted solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression a right that has been systematically stripped away under Taliban rule. Amnesty further urged the international community to increase protective measures for Afghanistani journalists and media workers, who continue to operate in an environment of fear, violence, and impunity. Despite mounting international condemnation, the Taliban continue to maintain deafening silence regarding their media repression. Media watchdogs and independent experts assert that the Taliban regime perceives independent journalism as a threat to its authoritarian legitimacy, and therefore has escalated its efforts to suffocate any remaining pockets of free expression. Arrests, beatings, disappearances, censorship, and surveillance have become normalized tools of control.
Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have aggressively dismantled Afghanistan’s once-thriving and diverse media ecosystem. Hundreds of media outlets have been forced to shut down, thousands of journalists have been silenced or forced into exile, and those who remain inside the country live under constant threat of arrest, torture, and even execution for simply doing their jobs. In many parts of the country, journalism has been effectively criminalized. The Taliban’s fear of information is profound and justified. In a regime sustained by propaganda, repression, and absolutism, the truth becomes a dangerous weapon. And so, they treat journalists as enemies, rather than as essential actors in a functioning society.
International organizations such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have repeatedly sounded the alarm. Yet the Taliban’s brutal campaign against the press continues with little resistance on the ground and insufficient pressure from the global community. The few independent voices that remain are subjected to an unrelenting campaign of threats, harassment, and psychological terror. This relentless assault on the press is not just a tragedy for Afghanistan it is a direct challenge to the international human rights system. If the Taliban are allowed to eliminate press freedom without consequence, it will send a devastating message to other authoritarian regimes around the world: that silencing journalists, suppressing dissent, and ruling through fear can be done with impunity.
As the Taliban continue to tighten their grip on power, it is not only the truth that is in chains it is the future of an entire nation.
