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Afghanistan Gender Pakistan

Mina Akbari, an Afghan journalist who fled her country, continues to live under threat from the Taliban regime

Jan Yousafzai

Afghanistan after Taliban: “I received a lot of threats in Afghanistan, the Taliban threatened me with death, even threatened my family, and they are threatening me in Pakistan as well. I am afraid here too. I feel scared on my way to work, to record the show. Taliban threaten me through social media and various different ways,”

As the world celebrates world press freedom day on May 3rd, many journalists from Afghanistan are forced to live in a contemptuous state with an uncertain future and threat to their lives under Taliban rule. While most of them, especially women journalists have no jobs as they are not allowed to work, others have migrated to neighbouring countries like Pakistan. Mina Akbari is one such journalist who moved to Pakistan after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in 2001 and continues to work despite economic hardships and continuous threats to her life from the Taliban regime.

“When I first came to Pakistan, my economic situation was very bad, I didn’t even have a house rent. I looked for work in Peshawar, luckily Khyber TV cooperated with me and I started working there. Then I worked with many other media and now I am working with Baribad and Space TV”, maintains Mina.

Reportedly around 70 per cent of media workers and journalists migrated from Afghanistan since….and mostly migrated to Pakistan after the Taliban came to power.

Mina Akbari, a resident of Kunduz province, left Afghanistan out of fear and is still facing threats in immigration. “I received a lot of threats in Afghanistan, the Taliban threatened me with death, even threatened my family, and they are threatening me in Pakistan as well. I am afraid here too. I feel scared on my way to work, to record the show. Taliban threaten me through social media and various different ways,” narrates Mina while adding that the future of journalists under the current situation in Afghanistan is unfortunate. She says that journalists and women have no rights in Afghanistan and nor does she see any hope that women will be given any rights in future too.

The author, based out of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, is an experienced journalist.

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