Photo: AFJC

Taliban Detains Local Journalist in Kabul Over YouTube Activities

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Taliban intelligence agents have detained local journalist Mahdi Ansary over his activities on YouTube, local sources confirmed.

Sources informed KabulNow that Taliban agents detained the journalist in the Pol-e-Khoshk area of western Kabul on Saturday, October 5.

According to the sources, Ansary initially went missing from the area on Saturday, but later that night, the Taliban intelligence agency informed his family that they had detained him.

The journalist works with Afghan News, a private local news outlet, and recently launched a YouTube channel where he regularly shares videos.

The last video posted on his channel, just a few hours before his detention, features a speech by Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban foreign minister, at the sixth round of the Moscow Format meeting last week.

His channel also features videos of a critical speech by Ayatollah Waez Zadah Behsoudi, a prominent Shia cleric, in which he criticizes the Taliban for their recently enacted morality laws and the demolition of the Hazara leader’s statue in Kabul.

According to the sources, the Taliban intelligence agency told the journalist’s family that they had detained him because of the videos on his YouTube channel.

According to the Afghanistan Journalist Center (AFJC), an Afghan media watchdog, this is not the first time the Taliban has detained the journalist. They previously detained him a year ago for reporting on an ISIS-K attack on Hazaras in Kabul. He was released after providing a guarantee that he would coordinate his reporting with the Taliban.

AFJC has called for the immediate and unconditional release of the journalist from Taliban custody.

This incident marks the latest wave of journalist detentions by the Taliban since their return to power in Afghanistan. Over the past three years, the regime has detained, tortured, and, in some cases, even killed dozens of journalists in the country.

A week ago, Taliban agents detained a journalist and the head of a private radio station in Ghazni province, accusing him of broadcasting an audio clip related to the regime’s suicide attack, a claim that his relatives have denied.

In most cases, the Taliban accuses journalists and media workers of collaborating with exiled media outlets and spying for foreign entities and groups that oppose the regime.

In its recent report, the AFJC documented at least 89 cases of Taliban abuse against journalists and media workers across Afghanistan, including 29 arrests in the first six months of this year.