KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban has expanded its ban on broadcasting images of living beings to Laghman province, bringing the total number of affected provinces to 19, according to a media watchdog.
In a statement, the Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) said the Taliban’s vice and virtue department in Laghman has ordered media outlets to stop broadcasting photos and videos of living beings.
According to the AFJC, Mawlawi Pacha Gul Ahmadi, head of the department, told media representatives on Monday to follow the Taliban’s law on Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
Besides the state-run National Radio and Television of Afghanistan (RTA), four private radio stations in Laghman now face restrictions on their social media activities.
Similar ban is already in place in 18 other provinces, including Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Badakhshan, Bamyan, Daykundi, and Faryab.
The restrictions come under the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue law, enacted in August 2024. This law gives wide powers to the Taliban’s morality police to monitor media and block content they consider un-Islamic.
The AFJC warned the ban has seriously disrupted media operations. Several outlets have closed, while some TV stations have switched to radio or reduced their activities.
The watchdog calls on the Taliban to reverse the ban and lift restrictions imposed on the media since their return to power in August 2021.
Despite initial promises to respect Afghanistan’s Media Law, which prohibits censorship and government interference, the Taliban has since issued over 20 directives limiting media freedom. More than half of the country’s media outlets have closed, and many journalists have fled or gone into hiding.
Female journalists, in particular, have faced harsh new limits, including bans on broadcasting their voices and enforced gender segregation in newsrooms.
