The activities of the Access to Information Commission and the Commission on Media Violation (CMV) will begin in a few days, said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman of the Islamic Emirate at a press conference on Thursday.
Mujahid said the government supports the media and its activities.
“From now on, if any violations are committed by the media or related to the media, instead of the intelligence or other departments intervening or humiliating and insulting, the violations commission will be established and will soon start its work,” said Zabihullah Mujahed, spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.
The suspension of these commissions has attracted much criticism.
The Ministry of Information and Culture said that currently 170 media outlets in the country have stopped their activities, but now there are 198 audio-visual media outlets active in the country and licenses have been distributed to ten other media outlets.
“There are 405 audio-visual media outlets in Afghanistan. Since 2003, 405 media outlets have been registered and received their licenses. Based on the survey of the Ministry of Information and Culture, the number of media outlets currently active is 198 across Afghanistan,” said Abdul Haq Hemad, director of Publications of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
Meanwhile, a number of media support institutions that participated in the press conference called on the Islamic Emirate to respect the principles that sustain a free media.
“The government must eliminate the feeling of suspicion towards journalists and instruct all their officials to respect the rights of journalists,” said Mohammad Bashir Atef, a member of the Federation of Journalists.
The spokesman of the Islamic Emirate also called on all media officials to consider national interests and Islamic principles in publishing content.
Meanwhile, the commission also said that Afghanistan’s Supreme Court and the Central Bank of Afghanistan have the most closed institutions in terms of providing information to the media.
The commission said that Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI) were witnessed limiting access to information over the past one year.
The Access to Information Commission, while acknowledging access to information as the fundamental right of the people and the media, said that if the necessary reforms are not made in a number of institutions as soon as possible, the access to information in these institutions will become more endangered.
“There are serious problems in the Ministry of Interior—the spokesman is not prepared to give an interview, they are not accountable to the people and the journalists. A similar issue is with the Ministry of Defense and other departments—we are not satisfied with this situation—if the leader of these institutions are not taking responsibility, then they should ask their spokesman to be responsive,” said Ainuddin Bahaduri, the head of the Access to Information Commission.
The Access to Information Commission has considered the non-categorization of information in institutions as another challenge to sharing information.
“There is a lack of a clear mechanism for classifying information in the institutions. Based on the law, the institutions are responsible for providing–and organizing–the information,” said Ainuddin Bahaduri, the head of the Access to Information Commission.—Tolonews
