Court under observation

The trial that I am witnessing this morning is located in Mahmud Raqi, the capital of Kapisa province. The geography limiting the dispersed small city of approximately 40,000 inhabitants is surrounded by karst mountains, a good one and a half hours drive from Kabul. Though a reasonable distance from the capital it may sound, we are deep in the countryside, far away from any tared asphalted road. The car hops along dusty gravel roads. As we drive into the province, Afghan radio stations report on an suicide attack in Kapisa's district of Nijrab. We don't have to go that far for the court trial, but the incident that comes to us as fresh news this very morning shows the fragile state of an area from which ISAF troops have retreated months ago already. French troops in fact were stationed in the area previously on behalf of the security assistance force. They withdrew months ago on order of president Nicolas Sarkozy, then president. The culprit to appear today is a French heritage in a way. Passing in the hands of ISAF and ANA troops as these moved into a zone previously held by insurgents, the security forces emptied the jails and took the man into state custody. Now, he stands in the middle of a justice chamber, accused of murder by a local court that deals with civil and criminal matters. The accused is a bearded man in handcuffs and perhan tambon, the customary local dress. The court deliberations takes place in the office of the judge, not in the court room surprisingly. A narrow place. The judge sits in a corner behind his desk, elevated. The rest in the room sink into plush sofas at the three sides of the room. The prosecutor holds to a stack of files in his hands. The culprit sits in the middle of the room, guarded by a policeman, who tiredly looks to the ground. He has freed the culprit of his handcuffs earlier on. They now dangle from his hip. Tea is served. "We normally don't do this in court," says the judge with an ambiguous smile. What is normal at court in Afghanistan? The judge looks neat. He wears a black vest, is hair accurately combed. Is seems in a mild mood for the day. Just because a foreigner assists the deliberations? A fan rotates from the ceiling. The judge eyes all parties present at regular intervals. The prosecutor is asked to read out loud the charges against the culprit. He is not proficient in reading. His finger follows each of his words on the paper. The indictment is written by hand, with purple thumb prints, taken from alleged witnesses. The accused is said to have killed a relative over a dispute involving personal and professional honor. Money was at stake also, my neighbor whispers. The culprit dares to interrupt with a low voice. He can't follow the deliberations in Dari and asks for an oral translation in Pashto. It is granted to him. Then he gives his version of the facts. The judge shakes his head. The victim was shot in the throat, he corrects the culprit, surely not able to put down a testimony as the accused claims, he says in a firm voice. The prosecuter asks for the man to hang him. From the ohter side of the room an older man interferes, sitting on a brown plush sofa next to me. What were the exact circumstances of the murder, he wants to know? Two of his companions write down with care what is being spoken in the room. The three men call themselves monitors and are working on behalf of IWA (Integrity Watch Afghanistan), an organization that campaigns for transparency at different levels of society. The monitors are independent observers for all courts in the Kapisa districts, they say. Heads of local shuras , headmasters, doctors. "Our presence makes the judge to act with more care" says one of the monitors, not without pride. "Until recently, many people in the district did not dare to go to court." Often the real witnesses would not be heard, claims one of them, or there was no trust in fair procedures. „People here now take their donkey to travel miles to court or with their motorcycle to present their case whereas before they used to be reluctant“, says Ali Mashalafroz, who coordinates the IWA office in Kapisa. "Before the wars“, adds a collegue at his side, „there wouldn't be compulsory defendents either". It is, they murmur, about putting pieces together again. The monitors all have in their hand a questionnaire with 21 categories. It contains questions such as: Has the local police documented the case? Has there been a medical or forensic report? Truth is not to come from one day to the other, the monitors are aware. Their presence, they hope, would render the hearings at courts more transparent. In the absence of independent media or civil society activists, the monitors fill in to observe the course of justice that suffers the caractersitic deficiencies of an Afghan state. Eventually, weeks later, the filled-out questionnaires of the monitors will go to Kabul, where they are evaluated. In funding the monitoring, international donors such as the World Bank, the United Nations Misson, French and international organization hope to push ahead the course of transitional justice and bring some kind of order deep into the Afghan province. As always, this is above all a hope. After the first two hours of delibarations, the trial is postponed. I may get an interview with the judge, I am told. Finally, the answer is negative. Permission has not been granted by the supreme court in Kabul, I am informed. The supreme court in Kabul officially supports the trial monitoring for the Kapisa and Bamiyan provinces. But off the record the institution does not like the justice system to be exposed as a corrupt limb of the Afghan state institutions. We wait over lunchtime for the trial to reach to a sentence. But time is getting late without a decision. We are scheduled to return to Kabul before dark. Back in the capital, a call from Ali Mashalafroz, the Kapisa coordinator, reaches me. The accused has inherited of 18 years behind bars. He has escaped the death penalty. A judgment owed to the transparency of the observers? The 'Communal Trial Monitoring Project', in the years ahead, wants to change the course of justice in more than just two of 36 Afghan provinces, IWA's Yama Torabi, the head of the organization, says. He hopes for more funds in the years to come. But first of all, Afghanistan needs to go through the uncertainties of 2014 – described by many as its most crucial year.

1914 - 2014: Geographies of Memory

In the year 2000 my father died of cancer. He was born in 1937 (or 1315 corresponding to the Afghan-islamic calender). When my father died, he left behind a notebook with photographs of his father, my grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1893 (or 1271). He fought in the World Ward I 1914-1918. With or against his will - the documents don't make mention of it. He was 21 years old then, in the trenches of the Western Front (battle of France, Belgium/Ypern) and a little later on the Eastern Front (Bukowina). In the photographs my grandfather left behind (he was authorized to take photos on the front, a document states) is this photo of a bullet that had penetrated his leg. The bullet was later removed. It is with me now. The French call Wolrd War I „la grande guerre“, the big war. It was the first time men and amunition came together to reach unprecedented levels of kinetic power and destruction. 70 Million soldiers fought in WWI. Nearly ten million died. Mostly young, unmarried soldiers. Among them thousands of soldiers with Islamic identities from the African and middle Eastern colonies of the European imperial posessions. Every eigth soldier did not make it home. The years of WWI and later in WWII were, as an Afghan sociologist remarked, more stable in Afghanistan than in Germany in various respects. In 2014, Afghanistan goes into a year of new uncertainties, the international forces withdrawing, and a hundred years after I discovered the bullet of my grandfather.

Kunduz Exit

Representants of the federal German government with its minister of Foreign Affairs, Guido Westerwelle, and its minister of Defense, Thomas de Maizière, have celebrated the closure of the German PRT in Kunduz today together with the official handing over of the camp to the Afghan security forces. What seems like a solemn end to the German engagement in Afghanistan leaves in fact more questions open than can be answered at this point in time: Will the fragile gains of security on different district levels last for good as a result of mostly US-American anti-terrorist missions accomplished against Taliban and alleged insurgents in the Kunduz area? The recent weeks have seen the killing of the Head of the Independent Election Committee. Also the Char Dara district, famous in Germany for the first heavy air bombardment a German officer has ordered there after WWII back in September 2009, saw a reemergence of violence partly caused due to the existence of the newly created militias and local police structures, with a variety of political and security challenges ahead for the coming months that could generate more violence to come (see here). German analysts for the occasion have pointed out different scenarios for Afghanistan ahead, ranging from a new civil war to a division of the country up to the Taliban seizing power again over most of the country like in 1996. While Taliban assert to be a player in the coming political struggle for power in Afghanistan, analysts also agree to say that history will not repeat itself. This could mean a model of sharing power with the new political as well as economical elites, including legal impunity for both sides smart enough to be communicated to a public opinion highly skeptical of its political leaders. It is highly interesting but in a way scaring also in this respect that intellectual and politically westernized Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has formed a coalition of circumstances with General Abdul Rashid Dostum with a ticket as vice-president for the letter in the coming elections. If Ghani, who is relatively trusted by western governments and diplomats and was once said to be a potential UN secretary general, joins hands with Dostum, who has a record of ruthless brutality, opportunism and in a way incarnates all sorts of anti-democratic values that play a role in Afghan poltical life, everything seems possible at once. May be also the inclusion of (former or reconciled) Taliban more or less directly coming from the battlefield in a future deal of the kind. Civil war or not could largely depend on how the elections will run. A tiny majority after the second round of voting might open up the doors for allegations of fraud and vote rigging. What will count a lot for in the upcoming months is the behaviour of Afghanistan's leading politicians and long time mujaheddin leaders and their aptitude to compromise or not. The starting election campaign has shown some signs of realism in this respect, but truth will show itself only as election day nears. Postponing the date could lead to major unrest, as it would be felt as a betrayal by many. A division of the country in some regards (language wise) already exists. Here as well, most will depend of the ability of the present political elites together with the neighboring countries Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China and India to engage or not in a multilateral dialogue that could appease or inflame the whole region. I don't personally belong to those who buy in a total withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan. The so called zero-option seems a part in the bargain for the US-Afghan bilateral agreement. The US strategically have more to loose in withdrawing from the region than in staying and having to go on fighting Taliban and insurgency. For this is clear: the insurgency does not seem ready to disappear any time soon. Several reasons that cause the fighting today will remain beyond a potential pecae agreement, as things look now. Coming back to the German presence: Afghan students I spoke to in Kabul the other day were asking me why the German footprint in Afghanistan has come to be so weak in the past few years and why other countries showed a much bigger appetite to engage with the Afghan youth, trying to establish heavy and convincing ties for their academic and economic future. In fact, there is an impression among young Afghan elites that Germany is not investing what it could invest seen its enormous economical potential. Security wise – with a look back to Kunduz – it was the military and strategical weakness of the Germans, pointed at by Afghans and Americans at some point in 2008 and 2009 that brought in a heavy contingent of US soldiers to fight the Taliban. Germans always stood in the second line, covering the anti-terror measures applied in public silence allong the years from 2009 onwards in Kunduz. They could have looked at it, as a German profiled journalist said, but they prefered to turn their eyes away from it and to act deafly.

Football euphoria

A saying about the United Nations in crisis zones when confronted to major unrest goes like this: „Last in, first out“. Today saw a relatively late statement by the special representative for Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, on the occasion of the victory of the Afghanistan National football team in the South Asian Footbal Federation Championship. The 2:0 from last week against India was „the country’s first international football victory“, the UN press release notes, going on to say that „the win has seen the Afghanistan National Football Team rise seven places in FIFA’s world rankings table to the 132nd spot – another cause for celebration... and more than just a sporting achievement. After decades of war, this triumph was rightly seen as another powerful symbol of Afghanistan’s return to normal times.“ This apparent euphoria needs to be seen in its right proportions. Afghan footballers have made it to the headlines of the international media the second time in a few week. The win of the South Asian Championship hides a number of aspects. On the one hand, it points to what is seemingly a tangible progress amidst war and conflict, that is - the ability to play international matches considered FIFA-standard in the current Kabul context - the ability to provide security for thousands of spectators (including myself) who witnessed the historical friendly match against Pakistan (3:0 for Afghanistan) earlier last month. The main security challenge in this match for spectators – Afghan nationals as well as for the few internationals, mainly representing western media) – was the reaction of the Afghan security force against the number of young Afghans heavily pushing at the gates of the stadium, trying to get in while not in posession of tickets. Some of the security forces would point easily their guns at the spectators trying to force the thin metallic and wooden doors to the southern stadium entrance. Also, while trying to report about the scene – part of the security personel seemed not at all aware of the rights of journalist to provide photos and reporting for their respective media. For most of my Afghan collegues, being treated with verbal and/or physical violence, with hits on the camera equipment etc. is a usual phenomenon. On the other hand, the few Afghan female reporters on in the stadium were in contrast treated with dignity as far as I could observe, not did they seem to complain. Here like in other circumstances in Kabul public life – it was difficult to separate regular from unregular security forces. Where as the police typically wears two or three different types of publically known uniforms, other security personnel was from the NDS, responding to the special potential threat a match against Pakistan might involve. Finally, some of the gate keepers hat no proper uniforms at all, no suits by the Football federation but where armed with weapons and seemed the most active to try and push the youngsters without tickets out. A few days after the match against Pakistan and before the the victory in the South Asian Championshi, I could interview some of the leading responsibles of the Afghan Football Federation (see here). Besides a logical aspiration for pride and national unity, both officials point at substantial challenges ahead in their sport, that is - the survival of the Afghan Football League going into its second season would also depend on overall security in the country as well as on the longtime committment of some of its major funders, (Roshan Telecommunications, Tolo TV). Lasting financial dependency is visible from the fact that the FIFA is a main contributor to the new stadium on the AFF. Also a number of top officials working for the AFF are still being paid by the German Football Federation or by the German GIZ, while at the same time the Federation could not profit from the income of the ticket sales ranging at around 20.000 USD for the Pakistan-match. Besides security, lacking infrastructure remains a main challenge for the league before it will be possible to play of the national championship in the classical 'home and away'-mode, with travel around the country and stadiums in other cities. With the current level of TV live broadcasting for Afghan TV viewers, the investment into technical equipment would also be considerable. 26 indian TV-experts actually helped Tolo & Roshan secure a high quality TV broadcast also for the match against Pakistan. But a copy of this is not to happen in other cities of the country anytime soon, I am told. Interestingly, hardly any international media made mention of the fact that football was not the total taboo under the Taliban as Western media like to put it. As correspondents who witnessed the Taliban period have pointed out in different articles from before oct. 6Th 2001, the day of the US intervention to Afghanistan, the Taliban regime apparently adopted a much more pragmatical stance to football. On a cultural and media-political level, it desreves explanation why most of the articles fell short of this historical note.

Appeal for Afghanistan

Yesterday saw the publication of an appeal from a number of influential writers, authors, journalists, former diplomats, politicians and activists for a renewed dialogue on Afghanistan. The viewpoint takes on the German federal goverment to assume its responsabilities with regard to an open and critical debate on the lessons learned since the intervention into Afghanistan started in 2001 and with regard to the involvements and risks of the (partly) withdrawal of foreign troops in 2014. Afghan ownership in the different sectors still being more wishful thinking than a political reality, the appeal emphasizes the need for a culture of debate in dignity and mutual respect as well as for new diplomatic initiatives on bilaterial and multi-lateral levels. Attached is the German version, the English is to follow. _______________________________________________ Appell für Afghanistan - Für einen erneuerten Dialog mit der deutschen Politik // Zwölf Jahre nach der US/internationalen Intervention in Afghanistan hat sich ein gerüttelt Maß an Sprachlosigkeit breit gemacht zwischen den Intervenierenden und den Einheimischen, aber auch vielen Afghanen in der deutschen Gesellschaft. Eine kritische Debatte über die Deutung der Intervention, ihre Folgen, Perspektiven und die entwicklungspolitische Mitverantwortung für eine friedliche Zivilgesellschaft findet regelmäßig weder im deutschen Feuilleton statt noch scheint sie politisch wie medial erwünscht. Ausdruck davon sind u.a. Fernseh-Talkshows, die immer wieder über Afghanistan aber selten mit Afghanen reden und dabei das Thema der deutschen Mitverantwortung weitgehend ausblenden. Zugleich betonen Militärs wie Politiker selbstkritisch, dass es angesichts einer nach wie vor fehlenden greifbaren Strategie mehr denn je eines kulturell sensiblen Dialoges bedarf, um Verletzungen, Missverständnisse und diskursive Gräben der letzten Jahre zu überwinden. So erwarten viele Menschen in Kundus nach wie vor ein menschliches Zeichen der Entschuldigung Deutschlands an die Hinterbliebenen des Luftangriffs vom September 2009. Leider ist diese Chance bei jüngsten Besuch der Kanzlerin in Afghanistan ungenutzt geblieben. Wie verhält sich etwa, so könnte man fragen, angesichts der damaligen afghanischen Opfer, das selektive Mitgefühl, der Bundesregierung mit dem – alle Menschen umfassenden – Begriff der Würde, wie ihn das deutsche Grundgesetzes formuliert? Kundus verweist wie kaum ein Ort der deutschen Afghanistan-Politik darauf, dass auch und gerade der Westen und Deutschland eine Mitverantwortung tragen für die stetig wachsenden Sorgen, die große Teile der afghanischen Bevölkerung aktuell hegen. So besteht nicht nur Angst vor einer neuen Teilhabe der Taliban an der Macht, sondern auch gegenüber „warlords“ und mutmaßlichen Verantwortlichen früherer Kriege und Kämpfe, mit denen der Westen seit Jahren Zweck-Bündnisse eingeht. Konkret besteht die Befürchtung, dass diese Kräfte nach dem (Teil-)Abzug des ausländischen Militär weiter ungestraft agieren können. Die Folge könnte eine Welle der Abwanderung vieler Afghanen aus ihrer Heimat sein. Dieser Debatte, die auf Versäumnisse in puncto Wiederaufbau Sicherheit und Vertrauensbildung hinweist, müssen sich die Verantwortlichen endlich auch in Deutschland stellen. Die jetzt offiziell verkündete 'Übergabe in Verantwortung' bzw. 'Afghanisierung' oder 'Afghan ownership' kaschiert dabei nur die mangelnde Bereitschaft sich öffentlich mit den Defiziten der letzten Jahre kritisch zu befassen, sondern auch das Fehlen ziviler Entwicklungsperspektiven. So gibt es etwa, entgegen vielfacher Beteuerungen, reale Zweifel, über Schlagkraft und Überlebensfähigkeit der afghanischen Streitkräfte. Dass diese nur so gut und effektiv sein können, wie Ausbildung und Aufbau, auf die man sich eingelassen hat, darf nicht unerwähnt bleiben. Hier wie anderswo dienen geschönte Soll-Zahlen außerdem dazu, erhebliche Mängel in der Entwicklung zu kaschieren, und mit dem eigenen Truppenabzug das „Gesicht“ öffentlich zu wahren. Weitgehend widerspruchslos übernommen wird in den Medien immer wieder gerne das Bild des ausländischen Militärs, dass Entwicklungshilfe vor Ort erst möglich mache. Unerwähnt bleibt dagegen, dass in der Praxis die meisten deutschen Hilfsorganisationen den Kontakt mit dem Militär vor Ort meiden, um sich und ihre afghanischen Mitarbeiter nicht zu kompromittieren. Nur indem man sich der Debatte über solche Folgewirkungen wie auch über die unzähligen, namenlosen zivilen Opfer in dem Krieg stellt, zumal aus Sicht der Einheimischen, wird verständlich, wo Afghanistan aktuell steht. Last but not least gehört dazu ein öffentlicher Diskurs über die strategischen Interessen nach 2014. Dass der (Teil-)Abzug das Ende des neu-aufgelegten 'Great Game' der Super- wie Regionalmächte über Afghanistan einleiten wird, ist wünschbar aber realpolitisch nicht/kaum zu erwarten. Umso wichtiger erscheint es, dass alle Beteiligten Schritte zur multilateralen Vertrauensbildung einleiten statt auf eine Zukunft mit Drohnenkriegen zu setzen. ___________________ Unterzeichner/innen // Ulrich Tilgner, Korrespondent und Autor // Roger Willemsen, Publizist // Dr. Navid Kermani, Schriftsteller und Orientalist // Dr. Gunter Mulack, Botschafter a.D., Direktor des Deutschen Orient-Instituts // Winfried Nachtwei, MdB a.D., Beirat Zivile Krisenprävention beim AA, Vorstandsmitglied Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen // Marc Thörner, freier Journalist, Autor „Afghanistan Code“ // Nadia Nashir Karim, Journalistin und Afghanistan-Expertin // Belal El-Mogaddedi, Freier Autor und Initiator der Villigster Afghanistan-Tagung // Dr. Ernst-Albrecht von Renesse, Rechtsanwalt und Mitinitiator der Villigster Afghanistan-Tagung // Martin Gerner, Autor und freier Korrespondent

Academy: The Hindukush of the Others

My lecturing on Afghanistan started at Bamberg University/Bavaria, Germany earlier last month, with a seminar on Afghan Cultural Identity reflected through Film, Media and Art and aligning a century of modern Afghan history, picking up the debate on the early Afghan constitutionalist movement and reaching out to the perspectives of a country highly in state of emotional alert at the approach of 2014. Bachelor and Master students in the seminar come from the fields of Oriental Studies and Communication studies. The group work is unique in the sense that I do organise regular skype interventions inbetween others with experts, scientifics and critically thinking youth from Afghanistan in the meetings in order to overcome the usual debate "about" Afghanistan and in which often enough Afghans are not part of, and replacing it by an approach that makes Afghan voices, spectra of argumentation, thinking and identity visible. The seminar is to be repeated in the coming semester at the Free University of Berlin very probably and open to demands from further institutions.

State of the Afghan media

The Doha Center for Media Freedom has looked at the persisting difficulties Afghan media face as the western partly withdrawal of troops approaches. I am putting an extended version here of what they have taken over here. -------- WHAT are the core problems faced by independent media in Afghanistan? Security remains a problem, especially for journalists out of the urban centers, where attacks are numerous especially in the south and south east. Lacking transportation and protection, local correspondents often depend on governmental authorities to drive them out to remote locations for fact checking. Local media regularly face with intimidation by government authorities as well as by regional strongmen or Taliban. Gender remains an obstacle. In the provinces, sometimes there are no female reporters to go and tape a story with females. The further away from the urban centers, the less training opportunities there are for journalists. Most of the money on media is spent in Kabul while the need for independent reporting is particularly huge in remote areas. Kabul allows for women to make their own reporting, but harrassement in this as in other circumstances happens daily and with a growing tendency, as women report who fear a return of the Taliban. Afghan journalists not only complain about intimidation by Taliban but also from governmental side. There have been numerous attempts to censor reporting and in depth research on Taliban and insurgent attacks that address critical questions to state insitutions. As of today, journalist associations still fight for the adoption of a law for the free access to information, allowing them to investigate without fear of being accused of treason or acting against national interests. All theses reasons in a way logically contribute to self censorship, a phenomenon regularly occuring in Afghanistan. National or regional power brokers, more generally called warlords, very much fear the impact of critical media and reporting. In return and with growing impact from 2006 onwards, a number of them have responded by mounting their own media, easily influencing an audience very much oriented to consumer orientated entertainment with serials or game shows. In the absence of real journalistic unions, the existing organisations do not make enough of an impact and tend to work along ethincal lines. The lack of an independent judicary very much impacts on an impression of permanent pressure and threat. Despite these problems, it is fair to call the development of media in Afghanistan a success story over all since 2001. This goes by the sole number of media outlets available. Satellite dishes have become common also beyond Kabul and tv and radio programmes still grow in number, while some editors-in-chief already fear serious repercussions for 2014 with foreign donor money rapidly decreasing. The success story of media is a relative one at the same time. The independent media – still largely dependent on foreign aid – have a difficult stand in the ever more intense battle for the Afghan audience. For instance the first independent national news agency that came into existence after 2001 had to suffer serious cut backs last year and lay off a considerable number of staff, before finding a new financial achnor only recently. Still the agency is unable to live on own revenues. One reason for this is that a major portion of the advertising market now goes to TV and radio stations. With an ever growing number of Afghan households turning to entertaining serials this is where the money lies.  -------- WHAT pressures are they under from pro-government actors and armed groups? Both, pro-government actors and armed groups, fear any revelation of irregularities. This could be an issue of corruption or the use of illegal force in most cases, also human rights abuses as seen on both sides. Recently, a number of independent Afghan media is trying to stand togehter as a free consortium, publishing investigative stories at the same time on the same day, thus creating a public reality and awarness that would protect them from a blame game by the authorities or regional strongmen, making it more difficult to pick on them or intimidate media. It remains to see if this model can make its way, so far also depending on foreign aid money. -----WHAT is the correlation between the number of media outlets and the freedom of the press? The amount of Afghan TV stations growing at a dizzying speed does not automatically stand for a rise in journalistic quality nor is it necessarily a sign of a more vivid civil society, since the tv market does not follow the logic of public independent media. Different stations work with international financial support - ranking from the international military, that succeeds in keeping this an issue not much discussed, to Iran, who exerces a offensive policy towards Afghan journalists at intervals. For some businessmen at a national or local level, owning a media, tv or radio, is an important factor of prestige and power in a society that consumes more and more programmes daily. Top ranking stations like Tolo, Ariana or TV1 look pretty modern and catchy in their presentation, mixing classical international formats, with current news, regular debates that only occasionally get really into being disputed and game shows. Lack of an advertising market in the print sector and the Western military withdrawal will accelerate the economical crisis also in the media sector. We are likely to see a number of printed outlets disappear. Afghan media observers predict that a number of the newly created tv stations might soon disappear, not being able to rival in quality also in the absence of income sources. On the other hand, simple radio phone-in shows allow women to participate in the public sphere. These phone-in programmes can also be seen as a way to signal what is going wrong in the social neighborhood and thus contribute to public awareness on a local scale. As for the so called warlord media, Afghan media seem largely to be left alone with them, the inernational community having turned their eyes away from the media sector. Still Afghan journalists suffer, get kidnapped or die in the exercise of their profession.