{"id":6288,"date":"2026-02-07T16:09:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/2026\/02\/07\/taliban-supporter-calls-foreign-media-devil-taloqan\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T16:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T16:09:22","slug":"taliban-supporter-calls-foreign-media-devil-taloqan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/2026\/02\/07\/taliban-supporter-calls-foreign-media-devil-taloqan\/","title":{"rendered":"Taliban Supporter Labels Foreign Media as &#8216;Devil&#8217; in Taloqan Friday Sermon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Zakaria Faiz, the Imam of the Central Jami Mosque in Taloqan city, Takhar province, and a supporter of the Taliban administration, described foreign media as &#8216;devil&#8217; during Friday prayers yesterday. He urged residents to refrain from following these media outlets in their homes.<\/p>\n<p>In his remarks, he emphasized that people should not seek the &#8216;truth&#8217; from foreign media and considered boycotting these outlets as the correct way to stay informed. These statements directly call on audiences to limit their access to independent news sources.<\/p>\n<p>This stance comes amid increased censorship and severe restrictions on media operations following the Taliban&#8217;s return to power. According to reports from media support organizations, pressure on journalists has intensified, and domestic media are under stricter supervision than ever before.<\/p>\n<p>Critics argue that such statements from official pulpits, alongside the Taliban administration&#8217;s restrictive policies, undermine citizens&#8217; right to access diverse and independent information. They contend this reduces media to instruments of the ruling power\u2019s propaganda, which contradicts the principles of free information dissemination and society&#8217;s need for awareness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taliban supporter Zakaria Faiz calls foreign media &#8216;devil&#8217; and urges people in Taloqan to stop following them amid increased media restrictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}