Daikundi – An independent radio station serving central Afghanistan has announced it will stop broadcasting, days after its editor-in-chief and two reporters were detained and questioned by the Taliban, who also seized broadcast equipment.
Radio Nasim said on its Facebook page this week that it was ending its broadcasts after 13 years. “With hearts full of sorrow, we must say that we can no longer continue — Radio Nasim’s broadcasts are halted,” the post read, adding that the station would “disappear into the waves of silence.”
For more than a decade, Radio Nasim had operated as a rare independent and non-partisan voice in central Afghanistan, home to the country’s Hazara ethnic group. Founded with private investment after receiving official licences from the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Ministry of Telecommunications, it broadcast from Nili in Daikundi and from Bamiyan city, reaching an estimated 700,000 people.
The station prided itself on neutrality, fairness, and balance. Its mission was to inform, educate, and entertain while promoting national unity, eliminating ethnic and religious discrimination and preserving cultural heritage.
On August 6, Taliban intelligence forces in Daikundi arrested Sultan Ali Jawadi, the station’s editor-in-chief, along with reporters Saifullah Rezaei and Mojtaba Qasemi and seized the computer the station used to broadcast, without giving a reason.
The three journalists were released several hours later, but it was not the first time Radio Nasim had faced Taliban pressure. In 2023, the same three journalists were detained, and a Taliban court sentenced Jawadi to one year in prison on charges of collaborating with foreign media, forcing the station off the air for nearly five months.
Radio Nasim’s website shows the station had largely published non-political content in recent months, possibly in response to such pressure. However, two days before the journalists were detained and questioned, Radio Nasim posted a video on its Facebook page showing two women and a man cutting wheat in a field, to the sound of music played on a string instrument. The regime has banned women from working outside the home, including in agriculture, and has outlawed all music in the country.
Since seizing power nearly four years ago, the Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on the media, silencing independent outlets and banning coverage critical of the regime. Women’s voices and images have been erased from much of the public sphere. In the past month alone, at least seven journalists and media workers have been detained in Kabul and other provinces.
Across Afghanistan, hundreds of radio, television, and print outlets have shut down. Many journalists have fled the profession — or the country — altogether.
