Focus on challenges facing Afghan journalists

Attiqullah Pazhwak is editor of two Afghan weeklies in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Although now 70, he still dreams of returning to his country, provided there is freedom of expression and security, a daunting challenge for the new administration hoping to rebuild Afghanistan with international help. "I am hopeful about the return of political stability. I will go back if there is security and freedom of expression," Pazhwak, editor of Erada (intention) and Tafahum (reconciliation), told IRIN. With the rout of the hardline Taliban regime from Afghanistan, the international community is promising billions of dollars for the reconstruction of the country. Afghan journalists - who have had to operate from neighbouring countries for decades - are now contemplating what role they can play in rebuilding their shattered society. Pazhwak has lived as a refugee in Pakistan for 14 years. He's a senior Afghan journalists, having graduated from Kabul University's Faculty of Literature forty years ago. He's hoping that peace will return to his country and journalists will finally be able to play a more positive role. Afghan Journalists in Peshawar A visit to the office of the Afghan daily "Sahar" (dawn), in the chaotic narrow bazaar of Kisa Khwani in Peshawar's old city, illustrates some of the problems exiled Afghan journalists face. The office is a few rented rooms in a crumbling building and the paper is put together on minimal resources using ancient equipment. "We face severe economic problems. Sahar has been surviving on sales and advertisements since it started publishing five years ago," Muhammad Zubair Sahfiqi, editor of Sahar, told IRIN. The newspaper, published in the native languages of Pashto and Dari, has a circulation between 6,000 to 10,000 copies a day. Despite this, most at the paper know conditions inside Afghanistan are much worse. "Journalists are the most oppressed people in Afghanistan," he added. "Over the last 23 years they have been pressurised and prosecuted by various warring factions," he said, adding that they were unable to uphold journalistic standards because of the conflict. "Afghan journalists cannot portray a true picture of their county." In addition to the Afghan Islamic Press news agency, there are more than 30 Afghan dailies and other periodicals published in Peshawar, catering to the huge expatriate Afghan population in the city. These publications cater to a wide variety of tastes such as news, analysis, education, literature, history and women in their daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly and quarterly publications. Most Afghan periodicals appear in both Pashto and Dari. Tracing the development of journalism in Afghanistan, Habuibullah Rafie, a Peshawar-based Afghan scholar, told IRIN that journalism came to Afghanistan when the first newspaper "Shams-ul-Nahar" (Morning sun) was launched in the late nineteenth century. He added that Mahmood Tarzai, regarded as "the founder of Afghan journalism" published "Siraj-ul-Akhbar" in the early part of the twentieth century. "In 1927 radio was established in Afghanistan, which was the first radio station in the region," he said, adding that greater press freedom was allowed the same year, but that changed with the overthrow of King Amanullah's government in 1929. In 1939, the Bakhtar Agence news agency was founded and two years later national radio was re-launched. "The 1964 constitution allowed independent media which was banned after 1973," Rafie explained. Television was established in Afghanistan in 1978 after the communist coup. But the same year Afghan journalism lost its sense of national identity under the Soviet occupation. "Sovietisation of Afghan journalism was opposed by the Afghan resistance journalism established in Pakistan, Iran and other anti-communist countries," he added.

" Some exiled Afghan journalists in neighbouring Pakistan are thinking of going home"

"The resistance journalism prospered and we had around 1,000 periodicals over the last 23 years," he maintained. The Afghan journalism flourishing in Peshawar today is the continuation of that tradition and its state today reflects the shattered shape of Afghanistan itself, Rafie said. Radio and Television "Radio is the most effective media form in today's Afghanistan because it has the maximum reach," Rafie explained. "Besides a vibrant print media we need television too," he said, hoping that Afghan exiles who have developed expertise in the internet and information technology would come home. Haji Syed Daud is the director of the Afghan Media Resource Centre (AMRC), a Peshawar-based Afghan NGO working on media development. He told IRIN that professionalism was the key to developing radio and television. "In early nineties all the warring factions had their own radio and TV stations. Ahmad Shah Massoud controlled his own radio and TV in Kabul, Gulbaddin Hitmatyar in Charasiyab, Dostum in Mazar-e Sharif and Haji Qadeer in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. "These were propaganda tools for their own factions, the Taliban of course banned music and all images," he said. "We should be quick to restore radio and television that are central to the ongoing aid operations," he explained. Daud maintained that most Afghans rely on Pashto and Persian broadcasts from the Voice of America (VOA), the BBC and other international networks because Afghan radio had lost its credibility. "Afghan professionals need incentives to come back, " he suggested, adding that the international community should help with modern equipment and training. Sharing this view Pazhwak said: "These broadcasts are like a tonic to the people, keeping them abreast of the recent developments and setting higher journalistic standards." A new independent media Afghan journalism has to cope with a wide range of new challenges in the current situation. "The establishment of new interim government in Kabul is a go ahead signal for Afghan journalists," Daud observed. "We now have educated people in the cabinet. If they can adopt the right policies we will have a lot of improvement in one year," he maintained. "Short and long term trainings are needed in coaching the Afghan journalists to be objective and shed the propaganda tendencies that they have adopted over time," he said. He added that Afghan journalists should focus on humanitarian issues such as demining and drug control, shifting attention away from politics. He backed the restoration of laws dating back to the sixties that promote media independence and called for a wider private sector role in promoting electronic media. Safiqi said many Afghan journalists want to go back home provided they had greater freedom of expression and would not face discrimination. "We want to go back because our institutions belong to the people," he said. Pazhwak underlined the need for Afghan journalists to become one of the pillars of democracy in the new country. "They should go to villages, passes, mountains and deserts to convey the voice of Afghans to their government and the international community," he said.