KABUL - From just one radio station in 2001 to hundreds of news outlets now operating in Afghanistan, the growth of the media sector is one of the country’s greatest success stories and a huge step towards enabling the population of nearly 30 million to access information. On today’s World Press Freedom Day, the United Nations celebrates this growth while also highlighting new challenges facing journalists and the Government.

“We call on all governments to join forces with the United Nations to guarantee and to promote freedom of expression in print, on the airwaves, and online,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in a joint message issued on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day.

This year’s theme “New Frontiers, New Barriers” brings the focus to the internet and digital platforms, as well as more established forms of journalism contributing to freedom of expression, democratic governance and sustainable development.

“More and more people are able to share information and exchange views, within and across national borders. This is a blessing for creativity, for healthy societies, for including everyone in new forms of dialogue,” the senior UN officials said in their message.

They warned, however, that these new platform of communication face “new measures to block, filter and censor information.”

“Challenges take different features, but they share the same face as violations of a fundamental human right. The United Nations is dedicated to ensuring that the Internet becomes a truly global public resource, to which all have access and where all voices are heard.”

The topic is a timely one in Afghanistan where last June the Ministry of Communications and Information technology urged local internet providers to create filters shutting out websites that promote alcohol, gambling or pornography, after such requests were made by the Parliament. The move caused an outcry among civil society and some media who feared that legitimate web sites would fall victim to personal grudges.

While still limited to urban areas, internet use in Afghanistan is rapidly growing with at least 20 internet service providers operating last year. According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized UN agency, more than one million Afghans were using the Internet in 2010, or about 3.4 per cent of the population. Just over one per cent of that population was online in 2006.

The rise in internet use is connected to the rise in media in the country. Around 800 print media outlets were created in the past decade along with 36 television stations and 95 radios, according to the Government Media Information Center (GMIC).

The development of an independent and vibrant private media sector – traditional and new media – is one of the most important outcomes of the Bonn process which began with the UN-led conference in Germany in 2001 and will continue with the second Bonn conference, this one Afghan-led, in December 2011.

Despite the expansion of its media, Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work in. Reporters Without Borders ranked it 147 out of 175 it its Press Freedom Index 2010.

At least 13 international and six local journalists have been killed in the country since 2001, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In addition, several journalists have been kidnapped, including two journalists from France 3 Television who continue to be held since December 2009.

Some of these incidents are among the 83 cases of violence against journalists documented since March 2009, according to Media Watch, a locally produced newsletter cited by Freedom House. The most publicized recent case is of Razaq Mamoon who had acid thrown in his face in January, the media attention around the attack spurred the Ministry of Interior to investigate and order arrests.

Drawing attention to such attacks is part of the work done by UNESCO in Afghanistan and UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit which systematically monitor the situation of press freedom. This work is done in the context of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) adopted in 1966 by the UN General Assembly – of which Afghanistan is a member since 1946.

The Covenant is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of which states that people have the fundamental right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Access to information is also protected in the Afghan Constitution which cites in Article 50 that “citizens of Afghanistan have the right of access to the information from the government offices in accordance with the provisions of law.”

Among its mandated role, the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA pays specific attention to censorship and abuse of female journalists.

In its 2009 report “Silence is Violence”, UNAMA draws attention to women in the media who like female parliamentarians, provincial council members, civil servants, international organization staff and women engaged in ‘immoral’ professions “have been targeted by anti-Government elements (AGEs), by local traditional and religious power-holders, by their own families and communities, and in some instances by government authorities.”

Some female journalists have reported to UNAMA harassment and abuse, as we as dismissal from or obstruction of doing their work by people who consider journalism an “immoral” profession for women.

“For fear of reprisals by AGEs or religious conservative groups, female journalists have advised that they engage in self-censorship,” according to the report.

Among the cases UNAMA has highlighted in recent years is of Zakia Zaki, a 35-year-old radio journalist and teacher murdered by unknown gunmen in her home in Parwan province in 2007. Zakia Zaki reportedly would say that her radio station was “a home for the community’s residents, the only place where they dare to speak freely.”

Despite it being an older case, UNAMA continues to push for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

In addition, UNAMA works with journalists and the Government to facilitate information flow and build stronger governance through an open media.

By UNAMA Kabul