Concerns about press freedom in Afghanistan are growing after the Taliban vowed to impose a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things.
State media outlets in the provinces of Kandahar , Takhar and Maidan Wardak have been advised "not to air or show images of anything with a soul – meaning people and animals", said Arab News, months after warnings that the Taliban's severe morality rules were creating a climate of fear.
After it seized power in 2021, the Taliban set up a ministry for the "propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice". A 114-page document, published in the summer, set out morality laws that "cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations", said Associated Press.
Even before the new law was announced, Taliban officials in Kandahar were banned from taking photos and videos of living things. "Now it applies to everyone," said a ministry spokesperson. He added that the prohibition was currently "only advice" and the ministry would focus on "convincing people these things are really contrary" to sharia law and "must be avoided”.
The news is "sparking concerns about the consequences for Afghan media and press freedom", said ABC News. The rules are "bizarre", said The Independent, and "no other Muslim-majority country imposes similar restrictions", including Iran and Saudi Arabia.
It is "dragging Afghanistan into darkness", said Shabnam Nasimi, the former policy advisor to the minister for Afghan resettlement, on social media. Remembering how the Taliban banned television between 1996 and 2001, she said it was "shameful that we stand by, watching history repeat itself". | 
