CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.
PHOTO: KADIR VAN LOHUIZEN-NOOR
Inside One of Afghanistan’s Largest Hospitals
“You don’t do this for the money.”
Militants develop smartphone app, slick videos to promote insurgency.
Days after a U.S. airstrike in May killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, a group of Taliban fighters gathered at a mosque in western Afghanistan to pledge allegiance to their new commander, Maulavi Haibatullah Akhondzada. Then they posted a video of the ceremony on Facebook.
On Sunday, June 5, three reporters were killed: Somali broadcast journalist Sagal Salad Osman, Aghan journalist Zabihullah Tamanna, and American photojournalist David Gilkey.
Gilkey and Tamanna, who was Gilkey’s interpreter and fixer were killed together in Afghanistan.
Fixer is a term for a local journalist who helps international journalists find sources and stories when they are visiting a foreign country, however in media reports on international journalist deaths, they are often not recognised as also being journalists.
“Drivers, fixers, translators, are by definition probably also local journalists. There were cases in Afghanistan and Iraq, where translators were targeted for working with Americans, both journalists and military. That shows how local fixers and local journalists are often at greater risks,” Courtney Radsch, Advocacy Director for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said.
“Local journalists are the one who mostly get harassed, killed, or arrested, because they report on local issues around corruptions and politics, which in certain cases is even more dangerous than war. It is much more common for them to become a target. It is less common for a foreign journalist to be arrested.”
Remembering journalist and photographer, Zabihullah Tamanna, killed on Sunday with fellow NPR correspondent, David Gilkey.
For those who live and work in conflict zones and war zones, it’s easy to become somewhat numb. Violence and danger can corrode your sense of humanity. But the pictures that Zabihullah took that day were the work of a journalist whose compassion was entirely intact.
Zabi, who was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR photojournalist David Gilkey, was far more than just a “translator-fixer” for NPR. He was one of a group of Afghan journalists who carry on their crucial work despite great and constant personal risk. They have extraordinary courage.
CPJ research shows that 24 journalists and one media worker have been killed in Afghanistan since the increase in U.S.-led hostilities against the Taliban and other militant groups following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York. Those numbers do not include Gilkey or Tamanna. Of those 24 journalists, four were photographers. In CPJ’s database of journalists killed in the line of duty worldwide since 1992, nearly 90 percent of victims were local. In Afghanistan, however, three-quarters of the victims have been international journalists.
“It’s not just reporting. It’s not just taking pictures. It’s, ‘Do those visuals, do the stories, do they change somebody’s mind enough to take action?’”
– David Gilkey, an @npr photojournalist who chronicled pain and beauty in war and conflict, was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR’s Afghan interpreter Zabihullah Tamanna.
The reasons for kidnapping journalists has varied, from intimidation through short-term abductions by intelligence services, to attempts to gain political influence or force the press to report on certain causes. Kidnapping and murder by drug-related syndicates, some with suspected government ties, have become common in countries including Honduras and Mexico. Kidnapping for propaganda is another motive becoming more common.
“I never did go back to Iraq- but I later spent time in Afghanistan, Gaza, and other conflict zones, reporting on war, trauma—and what comes after. I carry all of it with me all the time. I know how alluring and exhilarating that sort of reporting can be, and I know what it feels like later, when you can’t sleep, can’t concentrate, and struggle to relate to people in your life, including those who love you.”
The fatal shooting of senior Afghan broadcast journalist Mohammad Zubair Khaksar on Friday and the beating of freelance reporter Yahya Jawahari on Sunday further raise concerns for the safety of Afghan journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The attacks follow a suicide bombing attack on employees of the Kabul station Tolo TV that killed at least seven people.
Image: The brother of a journalist killed in a suicide attack on Kabul television station weeps at his funeral, January 26, 2016 (Reuters/Ahmad Masood).
A Taliban bomber struck a bus carrying journalists from Tolo TV in Kabul, months after the group threatened to target the independent news outlet.
A Taliban suicide bomber struck a van in central Kabul during rush hour Wednesday night, killing seven and wounding dozens of others. The majority of the dead and wounded were members of Tolo TV, an independent television station and one of two outlets the Taliban had previously threatened.
The return of television and music was heralded as one of the triumphs of post-Taliban life in Afghanistan, where entertainment and independent media had previously been banned. Tolo TV, which launched in 2004, has reported critically on such stories as an Afghan court’s recent decision to overturn death sentences for four men who killed a woman outside of a shrine after she had been falsely accused of burning a Koran.
In late September of last year, however, the Taliban seized the city of Kunduz in a surprise offensive. Media coverage of the Taliban’s exploits immediately angered the group, which threatened to “directly eliminate” employees of two media outlets, including Tolo TV.