By: Rukhshana Media
Almost half of Afghanistan’s radio stations have ceased to operate since the Taliban takeover of the country in August 2021, according to Nai Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan.
On the occasion of World Radio Day on February 13, Nai revealed that of 307 radio stations, only 170 are still operating.
“World Radio Day is being celebrated while nearly half (48%) of audio media have stopped their broadcast due to economic challenges in the country,” Nai said in a press release.
The Afghanistan National Journalists’ Union [ANJU] also released a statement on the state of the industry, underlining that the media had once showed strong growth in Afghanistan in the two decades since 2001, particularly radio stations. But the Taliban rule has had a devastating impact on the sector.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), quoting the ANJU, pitches the current number of radio stations a little higher. On its Facebook page, it says that there are 223 radio stations still operating, but it noted the huge decline since 2021. It said that at the beginning of 2021, there were 401 active radio stations.
With the loss of the programs and networks, many media workers have also lost their jobs. Nai says a total of 1,900 media workers, including 1,075 women, lost their jobs.
One of the stations that ceased to operate after the Taliban takeover was Radio Sahar, a station dedicated to women’s programming in Herat province.
Fereshta Karimi, Radio Sahar’s director, told Rukhshana Media that the station ceased to operate because of the restrictions on women’s media work and economic problems.
Mrs. Karimi says that when the Taliban came to power and imposed extensive restrictions on women’s rights, many stopped coming to the office out of fear. Almost eighty percent of the station’s employees were women.
“After the restrictions were imposed, the majority of our employees were discouraged and needed a lot more energy and motivation to carry out the programs,” she said. “It was no longer possible to maintain that motivation, and unfortunately, it made many of our employees leave the media and stop working altogether.”
The return of the Taliban has led to the deterioration of press freedom in Afghanistan as the group seeks to censor and control all information being broadcast. Local journalists have also repeatedly been targeted, detained, tortured, beaten, and in some cases disappeared.
