The Taliban government has suspended the transmission of BBC broadcasts from FM radio stations across Afghanistan, it said on Tuesday, as part of a broader crackdown on news outlets that has intensified in recent months.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Information and Culture cited “a series of violations” as the reason for the suspension in a voice message shared with journalists, but did not provide further details. Khubaib Ghufran, the spokesman, did not respond to a request for further comment.
The BBC said in a statement that the suspension would not prevent its journalists from reporting in Afghanistan and sharing its journalism online and via satellite.
It is one of the few international news outlets, along with The New York Times, Agence France-Presse and Reuters, to have a permanent bureau in Afghanistan. Its reporters publish journalism in English and in Pashto and Dari, the two most-spoken languages in Afghanistan. The BBC says it reaches 5.4 million people across the country.
Last month, it became the first news outlet to interview Mohammad Hassan Akhund, a key Taliban figure and the current prime minister of Afghanistan.
The Taliban has in recent months suspended news outlets and arrested journalists, but had so far mostly targeted Afghan news outlets.
In May, Afghan intelligence services held two journalists from TOLO News, one of Afghanistan’s leading broadcasters, for weeks. They were later released but the specific charges against them were never made clear.
In June, the Ministry of Justice sealed a local television station, claiming that it had been built on usurped land, and in September it shut down another radio and television outlet and arrested the station’s director.
Both broadcasters, Tamadon TV and Rah-e-Farda, are affiliated with Afghanistan’s Shia minority, which has come under increasing pressure from the Taliban government. Earlier this year, the Taliban dissolved an independent organization mediating between Shia communities and the government, closed a Shia seminary, and ordered thousands to vacate their homes in a Kabul township populated by Shiites.
The Taliban’s intelligence services regularly intimidate journalists, and government officials pressure them not to cover protests or criticize the government’s policies.
The Taliban administration has also pressured journalists, both Afghan and foreign, to present its military in a positive light as the conflict with Pakistan continues. Pakistani airstrikes have killed more than 500 civilians since the Pakistani military ramped up operations in Afghanistan last October, according to the United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan.
Pakistan accuses the Taliban government of providing a safe haven to militants who stage attacks on Pakistani soil.
An Afghan provincial communications official, Sediqullah Quraishi Badloon, wrote on Tuesday about the BBC’s suspension: “The BBC is a British media outlet, and Pakistan is Britain’s second home. That is why the BBC did not report objectively on Pakistan’s attacks on Afghanistan.”
Reporters Without Borders has ranked Afghanistan 175th out of 180 countries in its latest press freedom index.
Yaqoob Akbary contributed reporting from Kabul.
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