New York, April 18, 2025—Taliban authorities must immediately release independent journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi, who was detained April 14 by General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) agents in the capital Kabul, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
“Taliban intelligence must release journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi immediately and unconditionally,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “The continued detention of journalists like Kashefi is part of a ruthless campaign to silence independent reporting and intimidate the media into submission. This blatant assault on press freedom must end now.”
Taliban intelligence agents detained Kashefi after he was summoned to the GDI’s Directorate of Media and Public Affairs under the pretext of retrieving his mobile phone, video recording camera, and voice recorder, which had been confiscated in mid-March by agents who suspected him of working with Afghan exiled media, according to a journalist who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal.
Kashefi, who was previously a journalist for the state-owned English-language newspaper, The Kabul Times, has been working as an independent reporter covering current affairs in Kabul.
He has been detained by the Taliban before. In December 2021, a senior official and his bodyguards held Kashefi for six hours during his reporting in Kabul and beat him.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
CPJ Staff | Radio Free (2025-04-18T17:47:49+00:00) Taliban intelligence agents detain journalist Sayed Rashed Kashefi in Kabul. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/04/18/taliban-intelligence-agents-detain-journalist-sayed-rashed-kashefi-in-kabul/
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