By Kenneth J. Theisen, 4/25/07
Afghanistan
is often sited as a success story in the “war on terrorism.” The Bush regime has bragged about bringing
democracy and freedom to the Afghan people. But there is as much truth to that claim as
the fairy tales I heard as a child.
And soon any claim to press freedom will cease in that
ravaged country. The Afghanistan
parliament is about to pass legislation severely limiting any media
independence. The Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission of the legislature
is supporting legislation to bring the media under government control. An oversight committee will be created to
oversee the activities of the media, as well as to examine the content of
media. The committee will be composed of
officials from government departments and ministries. Any complaints about the media will then be
referred directly to the extremely conservative Afghan Supreme Court.
The proposed law will forbid any publicity about any
religions other than Islam, ban any anti-Islamic news, and further prohibit any
news that jeopardizes the nation’s stability or that may disrupt public
opinion. In effect, this law if
implemented will do away with a free press of any kind.
The Afghanistan
government has not waited to pass this law to attack the media. The Afghan Attorney General recently directed
police to raid Tolo TV when Tolo was accused of “misquoting” the nation’s
highest law enforcement officer. The
Information Ministry (IM) accused Tolo of “ill-intentioned” broadcasting “that
can lead to various interpretations and cause unnecessary public anguish. The way this news was broadcast”” The information minister stated the government
must have control over the broadcaster in a time of war. The IM has also banned Tolo TV from
re-broadcasting the popular al-Jazeera news which has been critical of Afghanistan
government ministers and actions.
There are parallels to the way the Bush regime has treated
the media in the U.S. U.S. Attorney General Gonzales has launched
attacks on the media and threatened to prosecute reporters for publicizing
information about Bush regime crimes such as the NSA massive spy scandal. The President, Vice-president, and other high
administration officials have accused the press of “helping the terrorists”
when other misdeeds of the regime have been exposed by the media. In the plea deal recently reached in the case
of “alleged terrorist” David Hicks, the government banned Hicks from
communicating with the media for at least one year.
I am sure the Bush regime would love to propose a law
similar to the one in Afghanistan
if it could politically do so to control the media. For the “moment” they do not have that
freedom. But it was not that long ago
when then White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, stated at a White House press
briefing the words, Americans “need to watch what they say, watch what they
do.”