September 09, 2018

Criminal negligence make life difficult for Afghan journalists

located:	Afghanistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

The journalist fraternity in Afghanistan lost two more young and promising members in a seemingly recurring phenomenon which has exposed the brutality of the terrorists as well as the criminal negligence of private media as well as the security agencies in place.

The country’s vibrant and emerging private media has been facing, for a long time, the heat of the raging insurgency. The lines between parties to the conflict and neutral actors in Afghanistan have been blurred and undermined by the warring sides, time and again, resulting in impartial actors becoming targets, such as civilians, media and aid workers.

In the latest incident of this sort, two young journalists of a local private news channel were among over 20 people who lost lives to a twin-bombing in the Afghan's capital Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood.

In a country where gruesome killings are a bitter daily reality, soon the news of this incident, like many more in the past, fade away with no accountability of the culprits responsible for the criminal negligence. It is evident that no journalist, or civilian for that matter, should have been allowed to enter the crime scene and report from that close of a proximity, for forensic and safety measures. 

This instance is not the first of its kind. Samim Faramarz and Ramiz Ahmadi, two journalists reporting with the local Tolo News, rushed to the site of the suicide bombing and were the first to report live. They were reporting from the exact site of the deadly bombing when the second blast went off.

What is more worrying is that the debate over the security of Afghan journalists has always circulated closely around the shortcomings in the security sector and the brutality of the armed rebels. But the media houses have seldom been held accountable for risking the lives of their journalists in the tough battle for higher ratings.

Right now is the time for organisations such as the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to take this issue up with regard to Afghanistan, where 13 journalists have been killed so far this year in line of their duties.

Photo: Twitter