Voice of America gives a false sense of security to Afghan women

This headline is from a news outlet overseen by the $800-million (average annual budget) U.S. Agency for Global Media.

This is a side effect of having U.S. government employees working as journalists in countries controlled by extremists, be they communists, fascists, or religious fanatics. Under these circumstances, reporters there simply cannot tell the whole truth and hope to stay out of prison or stay alive. They put themselves at a great risk simply by being there. Their reports tend to minimize the dangers facing the defenseless population but are themselves dangerous because they may give some people a false sense of security.

The VOA report quoted without any effective challenge a Taliban spokesman as saying that women “will be given all their rights within Sharia … Islamic laws.” VOA also quoted him as saying that “if women work in line with Sharia, they can work freely in media.”

Such VOA reporting paints a dangerously naive picture of the current situation in Afghanistan. By contrast, independent journalist and documentary filmmaker Shahida Tulaganova, who is not in Afghanistan, posted on Facebook about her conversation with a businessman friend in Kabul who told her that Taliban fighters came to his house several times to take his car and money and threatened his family, accusing them of being American agents. She also correctly observed that “this is not something you will hear from [the Taliban’s] bla-bla at press conferences, this is what’s happening on the ground.”

One of the best things about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty during the Cold War was that its reporters could not get visas to report from the Soviet bloc countries. Yet RFE and RL were still the best-informed sources of news from behind the Iron Curtain. They cultivated multiple channels of communication and did a terrific job without exposing their staff to excessive danger.

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty did become targets of intimidation, assassinations, and bombings in the West, but the vast majority of their journalists remained safe. RFE/RL would never write a headline that said: “A Communist Official Vows to Respect Human Rights Within ‘Communist Law.’” We would never write such a headline when I used to work for VOA.

In 2002, I negotiated and signed in Kabul with the new post-9/11 Afghan government the first U.S.-Afghanistan Radio Agreement. It allowed for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts within Afghanistan and gave the Afghans U.S. radio transmitters for their use. I now hear from USAGM officials that they hope the Taliban will honor this agreement. If they really think that, they are extremely naive. Indeed, the new Afghan rulers may allow these rebroadcasts to continue, but only if VOA makes its programs acceptable to the Taliban.

That’s why I am extremely concerned when I see VOA news reports repeating the Taliban’s message. The religious fanatics in Afghanistan would have to be better than Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose security services quickly shut down my VOA and RFE/RL radio rebroadcasting work in Russia. The Taliban will almost certainly silence VOA rebroadcasts, but they may not if VOA carries its message and mutes criticism. Such caving in to the Taliban must not be allowed.

The leadership of the Voice of America and the U.S. Agency for Global Media needs to know that reporting from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and rebroadcasting from AM and FM transmitters within the country comes at a price that is too high for VOA reporters and for the truth. They also need to realize that VOA is putting Afghan women in danger by giving them false hopes for rule of law under the Taliban.

Ted Lipien is a journalist, writer, and media freedom advocate. He was Voice of America’s Polish service chief during Poland’s struggle for democracy and VOA’s acting associate director. He also served briefly in 2020-2021 as RFE/RL’s president.