Today, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani held an explanatory assembly at the Government Media and Information Center (GMIC), where some of the directors and general managers of media outlets of the country were also invited. All the roads to the location were blocked by PPS and remained blocked until the president left the meeting. Finally, one of the PPS guards allowed the managers to leave, but another PPS guard insulted and physically assaulted Abdullah Khenjani.
Afghan Journalists Safety Committee (AJSC), while condemning the violence against journalists, declares that the PPS has physically and verbally assaulted journalists many times. This is one of the serious cases and we request that the case should be followed up seriously and the offender PPS guard should be prosecuted and punished accordingly so we don’t have such cases of violence in the future.
Physical assault is prohibited in all of the enforced laws of the country and security forces are not above the law. The government is responsible for enforcing the law and is obligated to enforce the provisions of the law on its personnel too. AJSC is looking forward to serious and lawful steps taken by the Afghan government in this regard.