Sanjar Sohail, a journalist from Afghanistan, won an Emmy Award as part of a New York Times team that reported on the Taliban’s extrajudicial and retributive killings after their return to power in August 2021. Mr. Sohail, the founding publisher of Hash-e-Subh Daily, one of Afghanistan’s largest newspapers before 2021, is the first Afghanistan journalist to win the prestigious award.
The multimedia report, “The Taliban Promised Them Amnesty. Then They Executed Them,” which Mr. Sohail co-produced with Barbara Macrolini and Alexander Stockton of the Times, won the Emmy in the News Discussion & Analysis: Editorial and Opinion category. Several other reporting on Afghanistan were nominated in multiple categories, including by HBO Max, PBS, CNN, and Vice, whose No Justice for Women in Taliban’s Afghanistan won an Emmy for Outstanding Crime and Justice Coverage. Afghanistan Undercover, a PBS Frontline documentary, also won the Emmys for Outstanding Investigative Coverage: Long Form.
Talking to KabulNow, Mr. Sohail hoped his Emmy-winning would help attract attention to Afghanistan and the Taliban’s crimes, “especially to women and former security forces that have suffered the most.”
The report, published in March 2022, detailed 490 cases of deliberate killing, torture, imprisonment, and disappearance targeting former Afghan security forces. The gathering and corroboration of information, according to Mr. Sohail, took over six months of investigation involving three journalists affiliated with Hasht-e-Subh Daily, the newspaper he leads. The actual number of Taliban victims, however, remains unknown, according to Mr. Sohail. Due to increasing fears of Taliban repression and restrictions, the team was unable to confirm and verify all the reported incidents, he said.
After regaining control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban publicly declared and widely advertised a “general amnesty.” In practice, however, according to numerous credible reports, the group has ruthlessly haunted down, tortured, imprisoned, and killed hundreds of former members of Afghanistan security forces.
Mr. Sohail shares an Emmy award at a time when the space for freedom of expression in the country is rapidly shrinking under the Taliban. This week, the regime closed another local radio station in Daikundi. A recent survey by the International Federation of Journalists shows that access to information in Afghanistan has reached its lowest level. In interviews, most of the 433 journalists, described the situation as critical and that the Taliban do not believe in freedom of expression. The report shows that the Taliban only responds to media questions if they know the report and the media organization aligns with their interests.
Confirming the expanding restrictions in Afghanistan, Mr. Sohail, however, says that as long as the commitment to work exists, the Afghanistan media will continue to report on the situation under Taliban rule, albeit in a limited capacity.
Several journalists, media employees, and dozens of human rights defenders and activists remain in Taliban custody. The group arrested yesterday Zholia Parsi, another women activist in Kabul. Murtaza Behbodi, the Afghan-French journalist, has been in Taliban custody for months without news of his wellbeing or prospects of his release.
