Taliban's Bloody 'Revenge' Against Media in Afghanistan

Four days after the attack on the Moby media group's minibus, which resulted in the deaths of seven employees of the Tolo TV, the Taliban announced that it seeks to have its name removed from the UN's 'blacklist.' A member of the group told Reuters on Sunday, February 4, that the Taliban's condition for participating in peace negotiations in Afghanistan is the removal of its name from this list. Nine days after the quadrilateral peace talks in Islamabad, the Taliban carried out an unprecedented suicide attack against this media group in Kabul, killing seven members and injuring 25 others. Afghanistan's National Security identified the attackers as members of the Haqqani network and stated that eight individuals have been identified and arrested in connection with this attack. A Taliban spokesperson claimed that the reason for this operation was the translation of foreign 'vulgar' television series and scripts into Persian and Pashto by the Moby media group. The Afghan newspaper 'Hashte Subh' criticized the Taliban member's remarks, stating that in Qatar, where the Taliban has a political office, there are media outlets where news presenters appear without headscarves. According to this newspaper, Turkish television series are translated into Persian and Pashto in Afghanistan and have a large audience in the country. 'Hashte Subh' added that even al-Qaeda has not carried out such operations against 'Arab-speaking singers and models.' The newspaper attributed the main reason for this operation to the media's influence on public opinion in Afghanistan and consequently the Taliban's 'isolation' in the country, stating that this was a retaliatory act. The seven individuals who lost their lives in this 'revenge' act, according to the newspaper, are Mohammad Ali Mohammadi, Mohammad Hossein, Maryam Ebrahimi, Hossein Amiri, Zainab Mirzaei, Mohammad Javad Hosseini, and Mehri Azizi. The newspaper noted that the Taliban despises media and media production companies and easily kills them. Christophe Deloire, the Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders, described 'jihadists' as the 'worst enemies' of press freedom in the world. This organization stated that since 2001, journalists in Afghanistan have paid a heavy price for their duties. Statistics from Reporters Without Borders indicate that at least 33 journalists have lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2001, of which 15 were foreign journalists. Afghanistan ranked 128th out of 180 countries in the global press freedom index this year. Over the past decade, significant print, visual, and audio media have been established in the country; one of the most important is Tolo TV, which began its operations in Kabul in 2003. Tolo is the third private television station in Afghanistan and is considered one of the most popular television networks in the country. In the early months of its operation, Tolo broadcast music, which faced opposition from religious institutions and the Afghan Supreme Court, leading to restrictions on its activities in this area, similar to other private television stations. Due to increasing pressure from religious circles, the officials of this television had long ago included religious programming in their schedule, which faced the Taliban's attack. Prior to this attack, the Taliban had issued a statement threatening Tolo TV and several other private media outlets in Afghanistan with an attack. International reactions to this bloody attack continue, as a memorial ceremony for the seven victims of this incident was held in Kabul on Sunday. In this ceremony, current and former presidents of Afghanistan, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and Hamid Karzai, along with a group of local officials and journalists, attended and honored the memory of the deceased. At the end of this ceremony, Ashraf Ghani stated, 'Those who commit such atrocities are neither Afghan nor Muslim.'