KABUL: An Afghan radio journalist was killed in an armed attack in the province of Ghor on Friday.
According to the governor’s spokesman Aref Aber, unknown armed men opened fire on Besmullah Adel Aimaq, editor-in-chief of Voice of Ghor radio. As a result, he suffered bullet injuries and died on the spot.
The spokesman further said Besmullah was on the way to his office in Koh city terrorists targeted him. It is worth mentioning here Besmullah was the fifth media worker to be killed in two months in Afghanistan.
Last month, Afghan journalist Rahmatullah Nekzad was murdered in the eastern city of Ghazni. He was shot dead by unknown attackers on his way to a mosque near his house, according to reports.
On December 11, a journalist and women’s rights campaigner had been gunned down by assailants in eastern Afghanistan.
Malalai Maiwand, a reporter at Enikas Radio and TV, was killed with her driver, Mohammad Tahir, on her morning commute to work in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Nangarhar province.
Her death comes a month after a leading journalist in Southern Helmand, Elyas Dayee, and a prominent former TV news presenter in Kabul, Yama Siawash, were killed in car bombings. This year has also seen attacks on human rights workers, moderate religious scholars and civil society activists.
The Taliban denied responsibility for Maiwand’s death and have not claimed the other killings. The attacks have targeted people working in professions or in conditions including mixed-gender offices that the Taliban want to curtail or abolish should they regain power in Kabul.
Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Alison Blake, called for an investigation into the murder and for support for journalists. “We must unite to uphold press freedom, their deaths must be investigated and their killers face justice for this wicked act,” she tweeted.
Afghanistan’s vibrant media is one of the unqualified successes of the post-Taliban era and a beacon in a region where many countries have poor records of censorship, suppression and violence towards journalists, from Iran to China and Pakistan.
