The Taliban released two journalists working with the United Nations’s refugee agency Friday, the organization announced on social media.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s deputy minister of culture and information, wrote on social media the journalists were detained for not having the proper documents that identified them as workers with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Once their identities were confirmed, Mujahid said the two were let go, according to a translation provided by the Associated Press.
“We are relieved to confirm the release in Kabul of the two journalists on assignment with UNHCR, and the Afghan nationals working with them,” UNHCR wrote on Twitter. “We are grateful to all who expressed concern and offered help. We remain committed to the people of Afghanistan.”
WHITE HOUSE BRISTLES AT UKRAINE-AFGHANISTAN EVACUATION COMPARISONS
We are relieved to confirm the release in Kabul of the two journalists on assignment with UNHCR, and the Afghan nationals working with them.
We are grateful to all who expressed concern and offered help.
We remain committed to the people of Afghanistan.
— UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) February 11, 2022
The Committee to Protect Journalists identified one of the journalists held by the Taliban as Andrew North, a former BBC reporter on assignment for the UNHCR. An unidentified U.N. official in Kabul told CPJ that North was detained Tuesday. The second journalist was not identified.
Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, described the Taliban holding the two journalists as “a sad reflection of the overall decline of press freedom and increasing attacks on journalists under Taliban rule.” He said North and other journalists should be allowed to continue their work and that the Taliban “must halt its repeated attacks on and harassment of journalists.”
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The U.N. was briefed on a report Wednesday that claimed ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, has doubled its size. The report cited “the release by the Taliban of several thousand individuals from prison” in Afghanistan as the primary source of the additional fighters. The Taliban retook control of Afghanistan last year after the United States withdrew its forces.
