AFGHANISTAN: Radios in the crosshairs of the Taliban

The Afghan Ministry of Information reported that four television stations and 11 broadcasters had been seized at Laskhar Gat, including the BBC World Service, which operates on 89.2 MHz
The Afghan Ministry of Information reported that four television stations and 11 broadcasters had been seized at Laskhar Gat, including the BBC World Service, which operates on 89.2 MHz
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The American military disengagement has left the field open to the Taliban, who have resumed their ground offensive in three large cities in the south and west of the country: Herat, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar. In the course of the advance, the terrorists occupy the radio stations, using some of them to rebroadcast their radio signal, and intimidate the others, forcing them to switch off.

In the tweet by Chris Greenway of BBC Monitoring (which echoes that of Zahid Khan, an Afghan activist and journalist), the frequencies that are being retransmitted by Radio Voice of Sharia and the deactivation of the BBC World Service, which operated in the city on 89.2 MHz, are indicated
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As happened on 2 August 2021 in Lashkar Gah, a city of 200,000 inhabitants in the south of the country, capital of the province of Helmand, which has been under attack for days by the Taliban, who now control several neighbourhoods. The Taliban started to broadcast Radio Voice of Sharia (Shariat Ghag) on 95.0 and 105.2 MHz of the former state radio station and switched off all other stations.

In a report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, freelance journalist Raksha Kumar examined the situation of the Afghan media
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Before the American intervention, when the Islamic State controlled 90% of the country, there was only one radio station controlled by the Taliban, which broadcast religious messages. In the last twenty years, however, information has opened up to pluralism: television stations, 170 radio stations and over 100 newspapers have been set up. An interesting report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism takes stock of the situation. More than 50% of the population (a total of 38 million) is under the age of 19, and around 6.5 million Afghans are active on social networks.

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