Afghanistan: media worker beaten, arrested for covering women's protest
Event- Country
- Afghanistan
- Initial Date
- May 29, 2022
- Event Description
On May 29, journalist Roman Karimi and his driver, Samiullah, were detained and beaten by a Taliban intelligence agent while covering a women’s protest at the Haji Yaqub roundabout in Kabul District 10 for Salam Watandar radio station.
Despite showing his journalist identification card, the agent forced Karimi inside a traffic booth and questioned him. Other officers took the journalists’ voice recorder and phone, and reviewed the phone’s content, including his social media accounts. When Karimi tried to protest the removal of his personal devices the agent slapped his face.
Karimi and his driver were both detained for seven hours and were eventually released at 5pm on the condition that they would no longer cover protest events.
Arbitrary detainments, arrests and attacks on media workers have continued to increase since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 2021. In the latest South Asia Press Freedom report, the IFJ documented 75 media rights violations, including 12 killings and 30 arrests, in Afghanistan from May 2021 to April 2022.An estimated 1,000 journalists have fled the country since last August, with threats, harsh restrictions and economic collapse leading to mass closures of media outlets.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- (Arbitrary) Arrest and Detention
- Violence (physical)
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of expression
- Offline
- Right to healthy and safe environment
- Right to liberty and security
- Freedom of expression
- HRD
- Media Worker
- Perpetrator-Non-State
- Non-state
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 34.52518961593192
Longitude: 69.17723444560683
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 29 May 2022, Roman Karimi, media worker, was beaten and arrested by the Taliban,who deleted the recordings from his equipment for covering an ongoing women's protest in Kabul, Afghanistan.