KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban have turned Afghanistan into one of the world’s hardest places for journalists to work in the five years since seizing power, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday, urging the group to end what it called the “brutal repression” of the press.
In a statement marking five years since the Taliban takeover, CPJ said the authorities have imposed sweeping restrictions that have curtailed access to independent information and enabled a propaganda ecosystem to flourish.
“Since taking over Afghanistan five years ago, the Taliban have made Afghanistan one of the world’s hardest places for journalists to report,” said Waliullah Rahmani, CPJ’s Afghanistan-Pakistan representative. “Journalists are surveilled, detained, beaten, censored, or driven into exile. Women journalists face additional discrimination, and people are increasingly terrified to speak.”
Citing journalists in several provinces, CPJ said that meaningful reporting is so restricted that, beyond topics such as health and education, traffic accidents are among the few stories they are allowed to cover.
The watchdog highlighted numerous cases of arbitrary detention and humiliation of journalists and media workers, as well as raids and closures of outlets in Kabul and other provinces for alleged violations of Taliban regulations.
The destruction of Afghanistan’s independent media has also pushed hundreds of journalists into exile, particularly in neighboring countries, where many remain vulnerable to detention, deportation and forced return, CPJ said. “Returning these journalists who fled Taliban persecution exposes them to foreseeable risks, including retaliation and arbitrary detention,” the group stated.
Press freedom was widely viewed as one of the notable developments under Afghanistan’s previous Western-backed government, which saw a rapid expansion of television, radio, newspapers and online media. Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, authorities have imposed broad restrictions, repeatedly detained journalists and closed large numbers of outlets.
In a report released a day earlier, the Afghanistan Journalists Center documented 102 violations of media and journalist freedom over the past 12 months, including the detention of 15 journalists and media workers. At least 29 media outlets, organizations and journalistic institutions were shut down or had their operating licenses revoked during the reporting period, some for allegedly violating media rules imposed by the Taliban.
Afghanistan ranked 175th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index, ahead of only Syria, Iran, North Korea and Eritrea. Media rights organizations say more than half of the country’s media outlets have closed since August 2021, while hundreds of journalists have fled the country or stopped working.
