By Rukhshana Media
In the most recent restriction on media and women, the Taliban banned television channels from airing movies with women actors, the group’s senior officials said on Sunday.
In a new media guideline released on Sunday, the Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice ordered media to not broadcast movies that are opposed to the “principles of Sharia and Afghan values” and depict “women actors.” It also ordered women journalists working for local TV channels to “observe Islamic hijab.”
The new, eight-points regulations is the second guideline issued to the media.
On September 19, the group issued media regulations which asked journalists and media not to produce content “contrary to Islam” and not to report on “matters that have not been confirmed by officials.”
The new guideline was released in a meeting between the Taliban acting minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Sheikh Mohammad Khalid, the group’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, and representatives of some media in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
“Some media are broadcasting programs that are contrary to Islamic Sharia and Afghan traditions. They must avoid broadcasting them because they corrupt youths’ mentality and beliefs,” the acting minister is quoted as saying by the state news agency, Bakhtar news.
The new restriction comes amid growing concern over media censorship and exclusion of women journalists from working in the media. In the past two months, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch have issued warnings about the Taliban censorship of media and their restriction on women journalists. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August, over 150 media outlets are closed, journalists are beaten, arrested, tortured and women journalists are disappearing from the Afghan media landscape.
