KABUL, April 21: Athletes from Afghanistan’s disabled Olympics team formed a cordon to block a protest march on Saturday against a popular television station raided by police over a news item on the attorney-general this week.

In wheelchairs and on crutches, more than half a dozen people formed a line in front of riot police to block a rally of several hundred reaching Tolo television in Kabul’s upmarket diplomatic neighbourhood of Wazir Akbar Khan.

“I am not supporting anyone, I am supporting Afghans,” paralympic team chief Haji Abdul Rahman said, dressed in a beige suit and seated in his wheelchair on the potholed road.

“It’s good TV. All the time they defend the rights of the people.”

Several hundred men marched on Tolo in a peaceful and well-organised demonstration.—Reuters