KABUL: At least two TV channels in a northern Afghan province stopped showing images of living beings during their broadcasts, journalists told on Tuesday, in line with orders from morality police.

The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) said on Monday it had started gradually implementing a law banning news media from using photos and videos of things with souls — meaning people and animals.

“The law applies to all Afghanistan […] and it will be implemented gradually,” Saiful Islam Khyber, the spokesman for the PVPV, said. He added 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, reported by the Telegraph.

Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, sparking concerns about the consequences for Afghan media and press freedom, according to a news agency.

Minister says coercion has no place in implementation of law

A Journalist in Takhar province said the private Mah-e-Naw channel showed only its logo along with audio broadcast on Tuesday evening. State broadcaster RTA showed national programming, which continues to show people and animals, instead of the usual evening provincial news.

The rules are part of legislation recently announced by Afghanistan’s Taliban government formalising their strict interpretations of Islamic law imposed since they swept to power in 2021.

PVPV officials said on Tuesday that all news media in Takhar have been banned from taking images of and broadcasting living things.

Journalists in Takhar, said provincial broadcasters had restricted their output after a meeting called by the PVPV on Sunday.

“PVPV ordered all the Takhar regional (television) media that after the meeting they can do radio reports but cannot use visuals,” that include living things, or they would face legal action, one reporter said.

“After that journalists with national TV and other regional media will all be forced to obey, and who will hear their voices?” he said.

PVPV officials held meetings in at least two other provinces in recent days to inform journalists the law would be gradually implemented across the country.

Ministry spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber said this gradual implementation would be achieved by persuading people that images of living things were against Islamic law. He said it was being enforced in several provinces, including Takhar.

Among the law’s articles detailing sweeping rules of behaviour and lifestyle — many not yet strictly enforced — it also says media outlets must not mock Islam or contradict Islamic law.

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

Before the recent law was announced, Taliban officials in Kandahar were banned from taking photos and videos of living things, but the rule did not include news media. “Now it applies to everyone,” Khyber said, Telegraph reported.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2024