NANGARHAR - Journalists in Afghanistan's eastern provinces have expressed concerns over their safety and financial sustainability during the so-called transformation decade starting 2015.

Afghan Journalists' Safety Committee (AJSC) organized a discussion in Jalalabad, under the name of "Open Discussion on Safety and Freedom of Expression in Transformation Decade , 2014-2024".

The meeting was attended by various the media organizations including international, national and local - working in eastern provinces, and spokespersons of Provincial Governor, Police Department and National Security Department, Director of Culture and Information and representatives from Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Babrak Miakhil, representative of AJSC and reporter of Radio BBC in Jalalabad said the journalists' safety committee was established in 2009 based on the reporters and civil society recommendation and with the support of UNAMA.

“The main reasonability of the committee is to support journalists and to ensure their safety. Now, the AJSC is working on a database having all the contact details of reporters throughout the country in order to contact them easily in time of need,” added Miakhil.

Other speakers mainly focused on the topics such as status of media in Afghanistan, particularly in eastern provinces, journalistic ethics, producing good reports without linguistic mistakes, financial support to independent media and challenges after 2014, and the Role of press in democracy.

Awrang Samim, director of culture and information of Nangarhar said “Our independent media should be self-sufficient and run their business without foreign support as in other countries”.

Beside insecurity, the main concerns the reporters expressed was self-censorship by reporters and non-professionalism by some journalists.

Yahya Yaqubi, lecturer of Laghman University and Abdul Manan Safi from local Sharq TV stressed on professionalism and asked the reporters to “Build and enhance their capacity, and learn more about the journalistic ethics”.

Muhamad Asif Shinwary, reporter of Iran News said that in its150-year history, the press in Afghanistan had seen remarkable progress during the last eleven years, but unfortunately, our reporters were not able to analyze the situation and to provide good analytical reports.

“Many key events related to Afghanistan are reported and analyzed by foreign media,” added he.

Some of the reporters seriously criticized Nangarhar's provincial administration in "refusing to cooperate with journalists to have access to the information".

Governor's spokesperson renewed his commitment to support journalists and ask them to have another meeting with him soon, to discuss the issue in details to end the row between two sides.

It was decided that they will organize another meeting next week to have face to face discussion to solve the issue.

By UNAMA Jalalabad