Since taking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban has made every effort to dismantle media freedom and criminalize women’s participation in public life.WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
Mujtaba Haris is a journalist and program manager for Journalists for Human Rights.
In the four years since Kabul fell to the Taliban, the plight of the people of Afghanistan has faded from international headlines. But they are still living a nightmare that deepens with each passing decree.
The Taliban’s return to power in August, 2021, came with hollow promises that this time, they would be more moderate, inclusive, and respectful of media freedom and women’s rights.
Four years on, it’s clear those promises were a smokescreen. The de-facto Afghan government has issued edict after edict designed not only to dismantle media freedom but to criminalize women’s participation in public life.
What began as restrictions on girls’ education and women’s employment has become something far darker. The Taliban have progressively criminalized their existence outside the home, even making it illegal for a woman’s voice to be heard in public. This assault on women‘s and girls‘ rights is so extreme that some observers have called it gender apartheid: state-sanctioned separation and oppression on the basis of whether one is male or female.
The repression does not stop at gender apartheid, however. The regime has restricted media freedom, banned independent reporting, censored TV and radio content, and criminalized any criticism of the Taliban.
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Afghanistan’s once-thriving free press, once celebrated as a remarkable achievement and an aspirational benchmark for neighbouring countries, was abruptly blacked out after the Taliban took over. They have employed censorship not just to maintain control, but to erase the voices of Afghans, particularly women and independent journalists. The number of journalists and media workers in Afghanistan has plunged by nearly two-thirds, from around 12,000 in 2021 to 4,600 in 2024; 51.45 per cent of media outlets have been closed altogether.
The regime has imposed draconian directives and a broad range of restrictions to crack down on the free press. That includes detention, physical assaults, trials of journalists in military courts, restricting women journalists’ voices from the media, beatings and threats to female media workers and even implementing a ban on showing living beings on TV.
A recent report from Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) found that 73 per cent of detained journalists indicated that they faced physical abuse during their detention. In recent years, more than 450 cases of harassment, arbitrary arrests, and violence against journalists have been documented, including 141 detentions and numerous incidents of torture. Too many journalists are forced to choose between self-censorship and lethal repercussions. In many provinces, there are no female journalists left.
Afghanistan’s information blackout is not accidental; it is deliberate, calculated, and perilous.
There are efforts to push back. Organizations such as JHR have helped relocate, train and financially support hundreds of Afghan journalists, human rights defenders, and their families. Thanks to initiatives supported by the Canadian government and the private sector, dozens of Afghan journalists now work in major Canadian newsrooms, helping them rebuild their lives and careers as they bring Afghanistan’s silenced truth into Canadian homes. They remind us that exile doesn’t mean surrender.
But not everyone got out. Thousands of journalists remain in Afghanistan, still reporting, still resisting. They‘re forced to operate in the shadows, filing stories under pseudonyms, broadcasting news from hidden locations, or sharing images that could cost them their freedom. Many have had to choose between journalistic integrity and personal survival, especially when their work puts them directly in the Taliban’s crosshairs.
When people can speak freely and have access to trustworthy information, they can challenge their government, question injustices, and embrace a thriving future. But when that freedom is stripped away, as it has been in Afghanistan, societies lose their ability to think for themselves.
By intimidating journalists, shuttering independent media outlets, and controlling the flow of information, the Taliban has managed to rob Afghans not just of their voices, but of their vision and their hope for a better tomorrow.
As we mark the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s return, let us remember that neither the fight for truth in Afghanistan nor our responsibility to those Afghans left behind are over. We must support independent media and empower journalists in Afghanistan who risk their lives by continuing to bring the truth to the public.
The free press, after all, is not a luxury: it is democracy’s lifeblood. And Afghanistan’s journalists, especially its women, are still bleeding for it.