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Concerns over press freedom in Afghanistan are growing after the Taliban pledged to impose a law banning media outlets from publishing images of all living things.

State media in Kandahar, Takhar and Maidan Wardak provinces have been advised “not to broadcast or show images of anything with a soul – that is, people and animals” , Arab News said, months after warnings that the Taliban’s harsh moral standards were creating a climate of fear.

Climate of fear

After seizing power in 2021, the Taliban created a ministry for “the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice.” A 114-page document, released this summer, lays out moral laws that “cover aspects of daily life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations,” the Associated Press said.

A UN report says the ministry’s role extends to other areas of public life, including media monitoring, with controversial rules for journalists including a ban on publishing any content deemed contradicting the Taliban’s extreme interpretation of Islamic law.

A spokesperson for the Taliban ministry said the ban on publishing images of living beings would be introduced gradually because “coercion has no place in law enforcement.” Efforts have already begun to enforce the law in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, neighboring Helmand province and northern Takhar, the spokesperson said, but the process “has not started in all areas.” provinces.”

Dragged into the darkness

Even before the new law was announced, Taliban officials in Kandahar were prohibited from taking photos and videos of living beings. “Now this applies to everyone,” said the ministry spokesperson. He added that the ban is currently “just advice” and that the ministry would work to “convince people that these things are really against” Sharia law and “should be avoided.”

Afghan journalists said they had received assurances that they could continue their work. One of them told AFP that the ministry had advised journalists to take photos from further away and film fewer events “to get into the habit”.

This news “raises concerns about the consequences for Afghan media and press freedom,” ABC News said. The rules are “bizarre”, said The Independent and “no other Muslim-majority country imposes similar restrictions”, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This is “dragging Afghanistan into darkness,” Shabnam Nasimi, a former political adviser to Afghanistan’s resettlement minister, said on social media, and recalling how the Taliban banned television between 1996 and 2001, she said that It was “shameful that we stood idly by”. , watching history repeat itself.”