Free Speech in Afghanistan

Nasim Fekrat, Rising Voices

fekrat@gmail.com

Dear friends,

Under the auspices of Association
of Afghan Blog Writers, the second round on blogging workshop was held for
tens of Afghan journalists and writers in ancient city of Bamian. This workshop was underway from June,
12 to June, 15. First workshop of this series was previously held by the Association of Afghan Blog
Writers in Kabul
for journalists, university faculties, students and teachers.
Two western and three Afghan teachers participated in the latest round of
blogging workshops. Mr. Martin (German journalist) who was supposed to teach in
the first day of workshop, unfortunately failed to do so due to an illness. In
the second day, first hours were dedicated to theoretical issues, in which Mr.
Jeffrey Estern (young American journalist) approached weblog phenomenon from a
western and modern-world perspective. Mr. Jeffrey compared visual and print
media with blogging and evaluated the influence of blogging on public opinions,
politics and other media, and said: "In our country, i.e. United States,
along with three constitutional powers, Media is the fourth power which
monitors activities of government. However, there was no body to supervise the
media. After years and with the introduction of technology and internet, Weblog
came into existence. Today, weblogs supervise the media, so that there have
been several cases in which bloggers revealed misinformation of some prominent
journalists who were consequently fired from their positions."
After some theoretical discussions, the rest of the second day was dedicated
to practical issues. According to directors, main goal of such workshops is to
turn this new phenomenon into a public one so as to ensure that everybody
practices the right of free speech with no censorship. Since increasing
pressures of Information and Culture Ministry has led to more censorship by
e-media and private TV channels, weblog may be a better choice to experience
free speech as well as institutionalizing this principle in the Afghan society.
This was the second blogging workshop held in Afghanistan, and Association of Afghan Blog
Writers is supposed to run similar workshops in other cities such as Herat,
Mazar- Sharif, Jalalabad, Kandehar, Bamyian and Daikundi.
Blogging is an absolutely new phenomenon in Afghanistan and most of the people
do not take it professionally. Therefore, such workshops directed by Association of Afghan Blog
Writers may speed up the process of professionalization and facilitate it
for Afghan bloggers. Today most of the youth and students have turned to this
phenomenon. Though having access to internet is very problematic, the Afghan
youth increasingly turn to weblog and blogging, and the number of Afghan weblogs
is increasing. Up to now, more than 20,000 Afghan weblogs have been registered
by Afghan people in various countries and through various blog service
providers, such as Blogger, wordpress, Blogfa, Persianblog.
Barriers to the Way of Afghan Bloggers
Afghan bloggers have to deal with a wide range of problems. Due to recent
controversies over Dari (Farsi) and after two correspondents in Mazar-e Sharif
were sacked just for using Dari equivalents of 'University' and 'Student', Afghan Telecom has
blocked two popular Persian blogger sites: Persianblog and Blogfa. Some believe that such acts are the continuation of
fight of Abdul Karim Khoram(minister of Information and Culture) against Dari
Persian.
On the other hand, there is the problem of power shortage. In spite of Hamid
Karzai ruling for several years and presence of International Community in Afghanistan, Kabul inhabitants still do not have access to
power. Power is available only 6 hours per day, and suffers fluctuations. This
problem may be a big barrier to the way of Afghan bloggers and prevent them
from updating their blogs.
Help Promote Free Speech

Directors of the project believe that turning this new phenomenon (i.e.
Weblog) into a public issue between Afghan youth and writers can help the free
speech and institutionalize democracy in Afghanistan. Today many emerging
journals claim 'independence and being free', but they are unfortunately so
associated with political trends and parties that practically come to
experience self-censorship. Very often it happens that they fail to publish
critical papers. On the other hand, Afghan journals and media have taken an
opposition stance and the only thing they may criticize is the government,
while there is a myriad of hot and sensitive issues happening all around Afghanistan
neglected by such journals and media. Weblog enables the writer to publish his
thoughts and criticisms freely and independently, using either real name or nom
de plume.

Thanks and regards
Nasim Fekrat
Kabul, Afghanistan