Afghanistan Bans Live Coverage of Taliban Attacks

[Flaneur]

Source: Agence-France Presse

Afghanistan bans live coverage of Taliban attacks
(AFP) – 9 hours ago

KABUL — The Afghan government has banned live coverage of militant attacks in a bid to prevent the Taliban from exploiting television news to their advantage, an official said Tuesday. The ban appears to apply to domestic and international news organisations, although the country's intelligence agency refused to provide details.

Afghanistan's constitution guarantees freedom of speech and media. An official at the government's media unit confirmed the ban.

A spokesman said live television coverage of attacks -- such as that in Kabul last Friday which killed 16 people -- could alert militant organisations to police actions against their operatives on the ground.

"While journalists are going to the scene of ongoing attacks, they endanger themselves and also they help inform the enemy with their live broadcasts or reporting of the progress of (police) operations," Hakim Ashir, the head of the Government Media and Information Centre, told AFP.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gOAAe6C7AZryQwo9FDb231OwfYcQ

---

Hmmm. That doesn't sound very free speechey.

[tekisui]

1. They are stepping back some on that.

Afghanistan may ease ban on news coverage of attacks

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan promised on Tuesday to clarify new restrictions on news coverage of Taliban strikes, and hinted that it may row back from the most draconian measures, which had amounted to a total ban on filming during attacks.

The United States said it planned to raise the issue with Kabul, a day after the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) spy agency summoned journalists to its headquarters and threatened to arrest anyone filming while strikes are under way.

President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omer, on Tuesday said that the new guidelines had not yet been drawn up, and promised they would not amount to "censorship."

"I would not call it restrictions. There is nothing even discussed or conveyed to the media called restrictions on the media," he said.

The goal would be to prevent insurgents from using live media reports to get tactical information, and to keep journalists themselves out of danger at the scene of violence, he said, without elaborating on how those goals might be achieved.

"Live broadcast of the scene of the attacks has in the past been useful to the enemy to give instructions to their people who are on the scene. Through a mechanism, we want to ensure that does not happen again. We are also blamed for not protecting the lives of the journalists," Omer said.

http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-46597920100302

[Flaneur]

2. How thoughtful to be concerned about journalists' safety, but somehow...

...I don't think that's what this is about, nor do I buy the "helping the enemy" bit. It's just kind of embarrassing--darn it!--when the Taliban keep infiltrating your capital city and blowing shit up.

[Arctic Dave]

3. t reminds me of the scene in "Brazil" when they are having dinner in the fancy

restaurant and they are trying to hide the explosion with the partition wall.

[mike_c]

4. truth is always the first casualty....

eom