Twenty-five Afghan journalists have their mouths shut in protest of the Taliban's economic woes, security threats and restrictions. They went on strike in a room in a corner of Kabul.
Abdul Nasser Hemmat, one of the journalists, said that the doors of the media in Kabul and the provinces of Afghanistan had been closed to journalists for three months now.
Women and men journalists have lost their jobs in many media. Abdul Nasser Hemmat states: We went on a secret strike for the third round. We urge the international community and the countries supporting Afghanistan to pay serious attention to the situation of journalists in Afghanistan.
Hemmat said that as the Taliban imposed new restrictions on demonstrations and the media, journalists' demands could not be expressed freely. Hence, this group of journalists symbolically wants to spread their protest in cyberspace by appearing in the small space of a room and closing their mouths. According to him, to draw the world's attention to the impact of freedom of expression and information in Afghanistan.
Abdul Nasser Hemmat says that journalists in Afghanistan are in a bad economic situation by losing their jobs.
Nasser, who has been producing political programs on an Afghan television channel for 12 years, says he has been involved in street vending. "The reporter's income is his mouth and his pen," he said. When his mouth and pen are closed, there is no way for his income. We symbolically closed our mouths so that they would pay attention to our condition.
The Taliban, however, have always denied violence and restrictions on the media and the work of journalists. Spokesmen for the group said they were committed to media freedom. But as far as can be seen, there are still no solutions to the economic problems of journalists as well as the financial problems of the media.