New York, July 29, 2024—Taliban authorities must immediately and unconditionally release journalist Mohammad Ibrahim Mohtaj, who was detained leaving his office on July 27 by agents of the Taliban’s provincial Directorate of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.
Mohtaj, a broadcast manager and presenter with the independent Millat Zhag radio station in the southern city of Kandahar, was transferred to an unknown location, according to a local journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals, the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center watchdog group, and the London-based news broadcaster Afghanistan International.
“Taliban officials must immediately release Mohammad Ibrahim Mohtaj and stop arbitrary detentions of journalists and media workers,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “Afghanistan’s notorious morality police must not exacerbate a media crackdown that has been a hallmark of Taliban rule or heighten fears among Afghan journalists.”
Millat Zhag broadcasts news and cultural programming for Kandahar city and surrounding districts.
A report by the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan said this month that the ministry, which the Taliban set up after taking power in 2021, used threats, excessive force, and arbitrary arrests to enforce its rules around media monitoring, drugs, and female dress codes.
Separately, culture journalist Sayed Rahim Saeedi was detained by Taliban intelligence agents in the capital Kabul on July 14.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment via messaging app, but The Associated Press reported that the ministry had called the findings of the U.N. report false and contradictory.
