The Taliban, in a recent crackdown on press freedom in Afghanistan, forced long-time war correspondents to publicly withdraw some of her articles this week, and would go to jail if she didn’t. Said to.
Australian reporter Lynn O’Donnell, who has contributed to foreign policy and other publications, explained her situation on Wednesday after successfully leaving Afghanistan.
“They dictated. I tweeted,” she wrote on Twitter. “They didn’t like it. Deleted, edited, retweet. I made my video saying I wasn’t forced. It was redone.”
and paper In foreign policy on Wednesday, Mr O’Donnell wrote that Taliban intelligence “detained, abused, and threatened me.”
She said the Taliban had problems with the threat of articles she wrote in 2021 and 2022. Forced marriage By the violence faced with Taliban fighters LGBTQ people I live in Afghanistan. She wrote that one intelligence officer said, “There are no homosexuals in Afghanistan,” but another intelligence officer said he would kill anyone who knew he was homosexual.
A Taliban spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The forced withdrawal by Western journalists has highlighted increasing restrictions on coverage in Afghanistan, where new leaders who have promised to allow media freedom have instead harassed and detained journalists.
united nations report Ten months after Tullivan ruled Afghanistan, 173 journalists and media workers were exposed to human rights violations such as arrests, torture and intimidation, announced Wednesday. Six journalists were killed during that period, five of whom were killed by ISIS militants and one of whom was killed from uncertain circumstances.
Susanna Inkunen, International Media Assistance Advisor to Afghanistan, a non-profit organization, said: ..
She said the amount of freedom journalists had depended on the state and the local Taliban. “People pay much more attention to what they report and how they report,” she said. “There is a problem that people no longer cover.”
Inkinen said he was unaware of other cases in which the reporter was forced to publicly cancel the report.
Report from Afghanistan
In one of the coerced tweets posted on Tuesday, O’Donnell wrote: This was a deliberate attempt to assassinate characters and insult Afghan culture. “
“These stories were written without solid evidence or evidence, and without efforts to verify the case through field surveys or face-to-face meetings with victims,” said another.
Ravi Agrawal, editor-in-chief of foreign policy, said the publication was underpinned by Mr. O’Donnell’s work and continued coverage of Afghanistan.
“The fact that the Taliban forced her to withdraw her report through a tweet speaks for itself,” Agrawal said.
He added: “We continue to report on Afghanistan from afar and publish an expert analysis as we have done for a long time. Lynn’s Trial is that reports from within Afghanistan are becoming more and more dangerous. It is a confirmation of. “
In an interview from Pakistan on Wednesday, O’Donnell said the trial lasted about four hours.
“The only thing I have kept in mind that it is my only protection is that they are anxious for diplomatic approval to give them legitimacy as an Afghan government, and they do it. I don’t have it, “she said.
Mr. O’Donnell, who currently lives in London, was the Afghanistan bureau chief of The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse from 2009 to 2017. She also reported from the country towards the withdrawal of US troops last year. ..
She returned to the capital Kabul on Sunday to see what happened to the country that year after she left.
She said local journalists were detained, beaten, killed, and many left the country.
“Their media organizations are either closed or forced to accept any line that the Taliban give them,” O’Donnell added in a report: “It’s a black hole. The lights went out.”
John Sifton, director of Asia’s defense at Human Rights Watch, said both Afghanistan and international journalists are facing increasing restrictions.
“The most disturbing thing for human rights groups is that restrictions make it increasingly difficult to know what’s happening across the country on a daily basis,” he said.
Mr. Shifton said there were concerns that Mr. O’Donnell was detained, but there was greater risk to the people she spoke to and the local staff who worked with her and remained in Afghanistan.
“Afghan journalists trying to do their job are still working and they face a far greater threat than any expatriate,” he said.
