In November 2024, people in Afghanistan’s northern Takhar province were met with a surprise when they tuned on the nightly television news: a blank screen. Instead of an anchor sitting at the usual desk, all they saw was Mah-e-Now channel’s logo imposed on a blue background. While a voice was reading out the headlines, there was no actual footage of the events.
This was no technical issue, but rather Mah-E-Now had been forced to comply with a new “morality law” imposed by the Taliban, barring broadcasters from showing images of living beings under the group’s harsh interpretation of sharia law. Soon, similar reports emerged from other parts of the country – from Badghis, Wardak and Kandahar. In Helmand, private TV stations were reportedly forced off the air altogether.
It was the latest blow against Afghanistan’s embattled media landscape under the Taliban. Once one of the country’s few unqualified success stories, Afghan journalists and outlets are now struggling for survival due to repressive policies, a wave of arrests, and dried up foreign funding.
How the Taliban Controls Afghan Media
After seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban moved swiftly to impose a stifling control over Afghan society. The former constitution and legal framework were both suspended pending a “review” of their compatibility with sharia law. In their place, the Taliban have gradually installed a complex web of new laws and policies, many dictated directly by the group’s elusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzadah.
The media sector is no exception. Just a month after the fall of Kabul, the new regime issued an 11-point “guidance note” to the media, banning coverage that goes against Islam and Afghan culture, or that is “insulting” to public figures. Since then, the Taliban have issued more than 20 other regulations on the media, ranging from bans on non-religious music to extensive pre-broadcast censorship.
It is no surprise that female journalists have borne the brunt of these restrictions. Taliban-imposed regulations mandate that women must cover their faces when appearing on camera, work separately from men in newsrooms, and are not allowed to share a screen with male presenters. In some provinces, women’s voices are even banned from radio broadcasts, while female reporters are often shut out from official Taliban press conferences. Other Taliban policies – such as a ban on movements without a mahram (male chaperone) – have made field work for female journalists essentially impossible.
Beyond restrictive policies on the media, the Taliban have also threatened, detained and tortured scores of individual journalists for critical coverage. During the first three years of Taliban rule, the United Nations recorded more than 250 arbitrary arrests of media workers and more than 130 cases of torture and ill-treatment. These numbers are likely just the tip of the iceberg.
The crackdown has led to a widespread climate of fear and self-censorship by journalists, essentially eliminating independent reporting. Afghanistan has plunged from 118th place (out of 180) in 2018 to currently 175th on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index.
A Dramatic Reversal of Progress
The Taliban’s decimation of the Afghan media scene is all the more tragic given the very real achievements of Afghan journalists over the past decades. After the 2001 U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban, Afghan media grew rapidly. By 2021, there were close to 12,000 journalists in the country, working for more than 600 outlets. News agencies like Pajhwok provided quality journalism and reached parts of the country inaccessible to international outlets. The private Tolo TV network was a commercial success watched by millions, widely known for its mix of hard-hitting investigative work, vibrant talk shows, and entertainment like the singing competition Afghan Star. Many Afghan journalists often did heroic work under extremely difficult circumstances. They faced threats and attacks not just from armed groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State, but often also from government officials.
During the last nearly four years of Taliban rule, this progress has been dramatically reversed. Media watchdogs estimate that at least half of all outlets in Afghanistan have closed. Many struggled financially or could not carry out their work under the new restrictions, while others were simply shut down by the Taliban. The media workforce has also been decimated, as many journalists have fled the country rather than risking life under the new restrictions. Women reporters have been hit particularly hard: a reported 84 percent of female journalists lost their jobs within two months of the Taliban takeover.
It is not just draconian policies that have forced media houses to close, but also a lack of funding. Many outlets were dependent on foreign aid money that simply doesn’t exist anymore, to a large extent because donors have been loath to channel funds to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Humanitarian funding nosedived from some $3.8 billion in 2022 to $1.9 billion in 2023, while the Trump administration’s drastic aid cuts announced this year are likely to have a further devastating impact. Although the U.N. reported a small uptick in the number of outlets and journalists in 2023, this is still a much-decimated media scene.
Inside the country, the outlets that are still active face ever tightening pre-publication censorship. The Taliban have imposed strict approval of content before it is aired. In September 2024, the Taliban even told TV stations that they could only invite talk show guests from a list of 68 pre-approved “experts.” The group’s policies are also informally imposed, with journalists reporting widespread threats and harassment by Taliban officials after the slightest perceived critical reporting. International media still maintain some presence in the country, but it has been dramatically reduced since the height of the Afghan conflict.
Instead, much of the coverage of Afghanistan now comes from “media-in-exile,” including outlets like Afghan International, Amu TV and Etilaatroz, or the more recently launched Rights Monitor. Some are newly established while others were previously based in Afghanistan and forced to move operations abroad since the Taliban takeover. These outlets valiantly try to fill the information gap in Afghanistan while keeping international focus on the Taliban’s excesses. The extreme risks of news gathering in the country, however, often make detailed reporting a challenge. There are also recent signs that the Trump administration’s aid cuts have already forced some of them – including Afghan International – to at least scale back on their reporting, while Voice of America’s Dari and Pashto services have been gutted.
The Taliban have targeted these outlets in-country, labeling them “illegal” while blocking websites and jamming broadcast signals. Several journalists working for exiled media have also been targeted through harassment, arrest and torture. In August 2023, for example, Taliban intelligence carried out apparently coordinated arrests of at least seven journalists accused of working for such “diaspora” media.
In fact, “cooperating with foreigners” has become one of the most common charges against media outlets and individual reporters in Afghanistan. In early December 2024, officers from the Taliban’s intelligence and so-called morality police stormed into the offices of Arezo TV, a private Kabul-based broadcaster. They seized mobile phones, computers and other equipment, hauling the station manager and one of its anchors to the notorious Pul-i-Charkhi prison, where they still remain. Their “crimes” were to collaborate with exiled media and to air programs – apparently Indian soap operas – that “go against Islamic values.”
The Taliban’s Propaganda Has Evolved
Despite the crackdown, the Taliban portray themselves as media friendly, at least to international audiences. Unlike during their last stint in power, “Taliban 2.0” have refrained from destroying TV sets and video tapes, and instead embraced visual media in their own propaganda efforts. Authorities have even announced tax breaks for media outlets, and last year held events to – seemingly without irony – mark World Press Freedom Day. The Taliban often deflect criticism of the group’s harsh treatment of independent media, saying outlets are free to operate as long as they are “in line with related regulations and principles.”
In 2023, I experienced some of this myself when I was based in Afghanistan with a humanitarian organization. I asked to meet an official with the Taliban’s communications ministry to discuss a recent wave of arrests targeting journalists in the east of the country. When I arrived, however, the official was much more interested in discussing international funding for a new press club he wanted to create – a space for journalists to meet and mingle. Taken aback, I tried to explain that there were probably other fundamentals of press freedom we had to discuss first.
The Slow Death of Afghan Media is a Tragedy
There are few signs that the situation for journalists in Afghanistan will improve under the Taliban. Despite intense international pressure and rumors of internal splits, the group has only doubled down on its authoritarian approach to governing – whether on women’s rights or media freedoms. Just in the last year, the Taliban banned women from attending medical training institutes and renewed threats against civil society organizations that still employ female staff.
In August 2024, the Taliban’s supreme leader also announced a sweepingly repressive “morality law,” known as the “Law on the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue” (or “the PVPV Law”). The law widens already existing restrictions and introduces a plethora of new ones – including on women praying in public, strict dress and grooming codes for both men and women, and – as the people in Takhar continue to experience – bans on images of living beings. There are widespread reports of “moral police” officials beating and arresting those that fail to comply.
As always in the Taliban’s Afghanistan, however, policies are implemented gradually and inconsistently. For now, presenters, including women, are still allowed on camera on national outlets like Tolo TV, but it is anyone’s guess how long that will last. There are persistent rumors that the Taliban are planning to shut down all state TV broadcasts and replace them with a single radio station. This would echo the Taliban’s approach to media during its first stint in power, when the group only allowed a single media outlet – its own Radio Sharia.
The slow death of Afghan media is a tragedy not just for the many brave Afghan journalists, but also for the country as a whole. With international interest waning – and few foreign outlets with a presence in the country – homegrown Afghan media is needed more than ever to shine a light on Taliban abuses.
