He and a team of Afghan filmmakers documented the hopes and fears of the city’s war-weary population, spoke to those involved in peace talks, and to those who will live with the consequences.
Now, as the peace process gets back on track, this new documentary and six-part written series explores a city anxious for peace – but terrified of the cost.
Read part I and part II
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Part III: Press freedoms and the Taliban revival
The rights of women are not the only liberties potentially at stake if an inter-Afghan peace deal returns the Taliban to power. Freedom of the press is seen as a major achievement of the post-2001 order, with newspapers and broadcasters springing up across the country. Yet, as the security situation declines, attacks on media workers have risen, making Afghanistan one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist.
On September 5, 2018, Samim Faramarz, a star correspondent for Afghanistan’s top broadcaster Tolo News, was sent with his cameraman Ramiz Ahmadi to report on a blast at a wrestling club in west Kabul. Minutes after delivering their live report from the scene, a second bomb exploded, killing them both. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) – a bloodthirsty rival of the Taliban.
A day before the first anniversary of their deaths, I paid a visit to Tolo’s studio to meet the company’s director, Lotfullah Najafizada.
Lotfullah is young for a man in charge of such an influential outlet, which regularly hosts top officials, strongmen, and key players in the peace process. Just that week he had personally interviewed President Ashraf Ghani and US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Although he is at least a head taller than I am, sharply dressed in a well-cut suit with stylish thick-rimmed spectacles, he is also softly spoken, thoughtful, and instantly likeable.
I ask him about Samim and Ramiz.
“It’s very tragic. We’ve lost 11 colleagues in the past three and a half years in many, many attacks. Two or three of them are claimed by the Taliban and others are claimed by Daesh,” he says, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
“It’s not just Daesh, it’s not just the Taliban, but mafia, drug lords, strongmen. And Afghanistan is also one of the countries where the rule of law is least implemented.”
