Afghan Taliban vow to implement media ban on images of living things

Afghanistan's Taliban morality ministry pledged Monday to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced.

It comes after the Taliban government recently announced legislation formalizing their strict interpretations of Islamic law that have been imposed since they swept to power in 2021.

"The law applies to all Afghanistan... and it will be implemented gradually," the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) Saiful Islam Khyber told AFP, adding that officials would work to persuade people that images of living things are against Islamic law.

"Coercion has no place in the implementation of the law," he said.

"It's only advice, and convincing people these things are really contrary to sharia (law) and must be avoided."

The new law detailed several rules for news media, including banning the publication of images of all living things and ordering outlets not to mock or humiliate Islam, or contradict Islamic law.

Aspects of the new law have not yet been strictly enforced.

Taliban officials continue to regularly post photos of people on social media.

"Until now, regarding the articles of the law related to media, there are ongoing efforts in many provinces to implement it but that has not started in all provinces," Khyber said.

He added "work has started" in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand province, as well as northern Takhar.

- Journalists summoned -

Journalists in Kandahar told AFP on Monday they had not received any statement from the ministry or been stopped by morality police for taking photos and videos.

In central Ghazni province on Sunday, PVPV officials summoned local journalists and told them the morality police would start gradually implementing the law.

They advised visual journalists to take photos from further away and film fewer events "to get in the habit", a journalist who did not want to give his name for fear of reprisal told AFP.

Reporters in Maidan Wardak province were also told the rules would be implemented gradually in a similar meeting.

Television and pictures of living things were banned across the country under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been broadly imposed since their return to power.

When the Taliban authorities seized control of the country after a two-decade-long insurgency against foreign-backed governments, Afghanistan had 8,400 media employees.

Only 5,100 remain in the profession, including 560 women, according to media industry sources.

Afghanistan has also slipped from 122nd place to 178th out of 180 countries in a press freedom ranking compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).