Taliban implements ban on living beings in media

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Afghan Witness

Afghan Witness's photo

Media outlets forced to cease visual content, limiting news coverage to audio and graphics.

On 14 October 2024, Agence France Press (AFP) reported that the Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MoPVPV) announced it would begin implementing a ban on media from capturing and publishing images of living beings. MoPVPV spokesperson Saiful Islam Khyber told AFP that the ban would be implemented gradually through “advice” and “convincing people”, without “coercion”.

The ban on images of living beings had initially been codified in Article 17 of the Law on the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV Law) announced by the Ministry of Justice on 21 August 2024.

The ban appears to have since been implemented gradually in several Afghan provinces. Initially, on 14 October, Amu TV reported that the ban had been imposed in Takhar province. Taliban provincial representatives — including from the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), Ministry of Information and Culture, MoPVPV, Governor’s office and security forces — had reportedly met media outlets on 13 October 2024 to inform them about the ban.

On 14 October 2024, the NGO Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) reported that following the ban, the state-run Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) had shut down its TV broadcasts, while private TV channels were on the verge of closure.

On 17 October 2024, Afghanistan International shared a video of how broadcasts from Mah-e-Naw, a private TV channel in Takhar, only featured the channel’s logo and audio. The video features several Mah-e-Naw programmes, including a news show where only the anchor’s voice, text graphics and landscape images were seen. An analysis by AW of Mah-e-Naw’s YouTube channel showed that of the 12 videos posted from 16 to 28 October 2024, nine featured only text, graphics and voice notes, but no human faces.

Similarly, on 23 October 2024, Afghanistan International shared a video of how broadcasts from Rayhan TV, another private channel in Takhar, only show a screen with the channel’s name with audio of the programme narrator’s voice (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: Screenshots from broadcasts from two private TV channels in Takhar, including from Mah-e-Naw, shared on X on 17 October 2024 (left), and Raihan TV, shared on X on 23 October 2024 (right) (sources: Afghanistan International).

On 23 October 2024, AFJC reported that in Badghis province, the Taliban’s Department of Information and Culture (DoIC) had officially communicated the ban to journalists via a WhatsApp group on 22 October 2024. After this, the state-run RTA broadcasts and the only private TV channel in the province, Oboor TV, had closed down. AW investigators noted that Oboor TV remained active on Facebook, but had not shared any images or videos of people since 19 October 2024.

On 24 October 2024, the Afghan Women’s News Agency reported that a Taliban committee charged with implementing the PVPV Law in Daykundi province ordered journalists there to refrain from taking pictures and videos.

On 24 October 2024, Associated Press reported that the ban had spread to Helmand province, where officials from the provincial DoIC had banned all media from photographing and broadcasting living beings. AFJC also reported on the ban, saying that it had brought Helmand TV channels to the verge of “complete closure”.

The Associated Press (on 15 October 2024) and Radio Azadi (on 14 October) reported that the ban had been implemented by the PVPV Law committee in Wardak province. On 25 October, AFJC also reported that there were signs that the ban was being implemented in Logar province.

The situation in Kandahar province appears less clear. On 28 October 2024, 8am Media reported that senior Taliban officials had, in a meeting with media outlets, given private TV channels in the province a two-month deadline to convert all of their content to audio (the report does not specify if the deadline had also been imposed on a national level). On 28 October 2024, Afghanistan International reported that private media representatives from across the country had travelled to Kandahar city with MoIC officials, to express concerns about the ban directly to Kandahar-based Taliban. The Taliban had reportedly assured the media representatives that they would be allowed to continue their work, albeit within the new restrictions.

Earlier in the year, in February 2024, the Taliban had reportedly prohibited filming and photography during both official and non-official meetings in the province, through an official letter sent by Mullah Mohammad Sherin Akhund, Governor of Kandahar, to all de facto governmental and military bodies. Furthermore, RTA in Kandahar had reportedly halted its TV broadcasts already on 2 September 2024 following the issuance of the PVPV Law.

Province Implementation date State of TV channels (state-run and private) as of 29 October 2024
Helmand 24.10.24 All TV channels reportedly “on the verge of closure”
Daykundi 22.10.24 No closures reported
Badghis 22.10.24 All state-run and private TV channels reportedly closed
Wardak 14.10.24 No closures reported
Takhar 13.10.24 RTA reportedly closed, private TV states operating but without showing images of living beings
Kandahar 28.10.24 (private TV channels given two-month deadline to switch to audio only) 19.02.24 (partial ban on filming meetings) RTA reportedly closed

Table 1: Table showing where the ban on media broadcasting images of living being under the PVPV Law has reportedly been implemented, as well as the status of private and public TV channels (source: Afghan Witness data)

The ban’s impact beyond TV broadcasts

On 20 October 2024, Afghanistan International reported that the Taliban are planning to convert RTA national and provincial TV branches into radio stations due to the PVPV Law. The Taliban instead plan to relaunch “Radio Sharia”, which was one the group’s main media outlets during their first stint in power in the 1990s.

Some media outlets also reported on new radio stations established by various Taliban ministries. On 23 October 2024, Khama Press and Afghanistan International reported that the Taliban’s Ministry of Defence had debuted a new radio station, Sada-e-Khalid Radio, based at the 201 Khaled bin Waleed Army Corps in Kunar province. The station will reportedly broadcast religious, ideological, cultural, health and recreational programs. According to Afghanistan International, the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior is also set to launch its own radio station, while GDI plans to take control of Radio Bayan-e-Shamal, previously established and run by NATO forces, and rename it Radio Hurriyat.

The ban also appears to have led to some Taliban entities removing pictures of people from their websites. On 21 October 2024, 8am Media reported that the websites of the Ministries of Higher Education (MoHE) and Justice had removed images of their respective ministers, Neda Mohammad Nadeem and Abdul Hakim Sharayi.

AW noted that there were no photos of either Taliban minister on the homepages of the ministrieswebsites, but Sharayi’s photo was still available on a biography page. Both Nadeem and Sharayi are seen as staunch allies of the Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. Public universities in Kabul and Herat had also removed images of human beings from their websites.

The ban also appears to have affected some social media channels of state-run media, based on an AW analysis of accounts belonging to RTA branches in Kandahar, Wardak, Takhar, Badghis, Daykundi, and Helmand provinces. In Kandahar, the RTA branch either did not post images of people or blurred their faces from 15 August 2024. However, the account shared posts by other RTA channels where human faces are visible.

In Wardak, however, the RTA branch continued to post videos and photos showing people’s faces as of 29 October 2024, despite the ban being implemented there since 14 October 2024. On the other hand, RTA Takhar, Badghis, Daykundi, and Helmand all appear to have complied with the ban since it was issued in the provinces, except for some instances of reposting content from other RTA pages.

In addition, AW investigators noted that MoPVPV has stopped posting videos containing people’s faces on its YouTube channel since July 2024.

 

Reaction to the ban exposes internal Taliban splits

The ban has also exposed apparent internal splits within the Taliban. On 21 October 2024, Afghanistan International reported that Defence Minister Yaqub Mujahid, Interior Affairs Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and three Deputy Prime Ministers — Mullah Bradar, Abdul Salam Hanafi and Mawlawi Abdul Kabir — opposed the ban as detrimental to the Taliban’s interests.

Meanwhile, a number of pro-Taliban accounts — in particular from the pro-Haqqani faction — shared footage of Jalalaluddin Haqqani, the late head of the Mujahideen Commanders’ Council and founder of the Haqqani Network, recorded in the 1990s. In the footage, Haqqani expresses support for the use of images of living beings in some contexts, in particular if they serve a jihadi purpose.

Prominent pro-Taliban social media activist Mobeen Khan also allegedly criticised the ban on X by sarcastically comparing the Taliban to the regime in North Korea, and saying that pro-Taliban videos he had previously shared would now be considered forbidden.

 

Remarks

The ban on photography and filming of living beings — part of the PVPV Law — appears to have been implemented to various degrees in at least five provinces since 14 October. This had led to the reported closure of both private and public TV stations, including in Takhar and Badghis, or to broadcasts that feature only audio and text.

Private media representatives are reportedly discussing the impacts of the ban on their outlets with the de facto authorities, who are allegedly planning the eventual nation-wide closure of the public broadcaster RTA. AW’s analysis further shows how the ban has had effects beyond broadcast media, also affecting websites and social media accounts of Taliban-run ministries, universities and media.

The gradual implementation of the ban mirrors previous Taliban practice – for example, the ban on women working for most UN offices was initially implemented in Nangarhar before becoming national in 2023. After the reported closure of RTA in Kandahar on 2 September 2024, AW warned of likely future closures of media outlets. As it stands, Afghanistan risks facing the same complete erasure of visual media as it did during the first era of Taliban rule in the 1990s.

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