Afghan Journalist Hamid Farhadi Released After Two Years in Taliban Custody
Hamid Farhadi, an Afghan journalist, was released on Thursday, Aug. 22, after two years in prison under Taliban rule. He had been detained and jailed for his reporting on the ban on girls’ education and women’s work.
Informed sources confirmed his release to Afghanistan International. According to these sources, the Taliban detained him in September 2024 and transferred him to Bagram prison.
He had been imprisoned on charges of “propaganda against the system,” an allegation brought after he published reports on Taliban restrictions on women. Media and journalist support organizations had repeatedly called for his release, but those appeals went unanswered until the end of his sentence.
During his detention, Farhadi’s family was only allowed to visit him once a month for 30 minutes, and only in the presence of a Taliban soldier. His release comes as several other journalists remain in Taliban prisons.
Media support organizations have described Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as “a large and terrifying prison for journalists and a graveyard for freedom of expression.” The Ni organization had previously said that during five years of Taliban rule, more than 700 cases of violence against journalists and media workers had been recorded, including deprivation of liberty, torture, beatings, threats, killings, unemployment, and the exclusion of women from the media sphere.
Hamid Farhadi graduated in journalism from Herat University and had worked with several media outlets before his arrest. Bagram prison in Parwan province is one of the places whose name has repeatedly appeared in reports on the detention of political and security prisoners in Afghanistan.
