Statements of the governor of the eastern province of Laghman, Qari Zainul Abideen, ordered relevant departments to help journalists gain access to infor-mation, and his comments have been strongly wel-comed by the provincial media community.
The Laghman governor’s office issued two separate statements encouraging the provincial departments to cooperate with the journalists. One of the state-ments was sent to Laghman’s department of secu-rity.
The statements stipulated that all military and civic departments be cooperative with the journalists while they are covering the events.
“The security department of Laghman is instructed to provide all information that is not sensitive or secret due to security issues.
The checkpoints and outposts are ordered to assist the journalists while they are doing their job,” the statement reads.
The officials said the decision was made to aid the journalists as they cover events.
“The governor and the department of information and culture sent the statements to the departments to provide facilities to the journalists to enable access to information,” said Salahuddin Zahid, a spokes-man for Laghman’s governor.
Lack of access to information is considered one of the primary obstacles faced by Afghan journalists.
The journalists welcomed the decision made by the provincial governor.
“Some departments received statements to give details to the media, we welcome this step,” said Jan Agha Saleh, a journalist.
However, journalists are still being faced with vari-ous types of challenges in their work. The media watchdogs have repeatedly expressed their deepest concerns over the status of freedom of speech in Afghanistan.
“One of the achievements is the freedom of speech. It is the right of people. It doesn’t belong to a spe-cific government. We should preserve this right and the Islamic Emirate must support it,” said Hafizul-lah Barakzai, a member of the Afghanistan Journal-ists Center and Federation.—Agencies
