November 28, 2014
Bazarak, Panjshir province- The acting editor-in-chief of Panjshir's state-owned biweekly has been arrested for publishing a poem that is considered blasphemous.
Abdul Jabbar Jobran was taken into custody by police following a meeting between local clerics and Panjshir's governor, Abdul Rahman Kabiri, in Bazarak on November 25.
The clerics have demanded that the local administration punish the person responsible for publishing the poem. Jobran's colleagues claim that he copied the controversial poem from the Internet and included it in the biweekly last month.
Under Afghanistan's media law, journalists can only be arrested after their case is reviewed by the Media Commission. However, in the case of Abdul Jabbar, this process has not yet been followed.
The Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) states that the press is obligated to respect Afghanistan's official religion. However, authorities cannot assume the right to arrest journalists.
In October, a columnist for the Afghanistan Express daily sparked demonstrations in several cities across the country by condemning the Islamic State (IS) and the Taliban. Protesters viewed the article as blasphemous and called for the government to punish the publication. A week later, it was confirmed that the editor had indeed escaped from Afghanistan and the newspaper's offices were closed.
Since the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001, Afghan media outlets have multiplied significantly. According to the Ministry of Information and Culture, there are now 170 FM radio stations, 55 TV channels, and around 1500 print publications, including 12 newspapers, 9 news agencies, and 500 weblogs and websites that operate throughout the country.