When it entered Kabul in July 1996, the Taliban banned Afghanistan’s only television network from broadcasting and changed Radio Afghanistan’s name to “the Sharia Voice”.
The group also banned music, women in media and destroyed a big part of Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA)’s archive.
But this time it seems that the broadcaster has well prepared itself for the insurgent group and is more welcoming towards it.
In the wake of a huge peace meeting in Kabul, RTA put a background banner in its broadcasts and social media profiles featured President Ashraf Ghani, former president Hamid Karzai and two senior Taliban officials Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai and Abdul Salam Hanafi on the left side of the banner with two women wearing burqa followed by two young girls in the right side of it.
RTA's Twitter profile before (left) and after (right) the criticisms Source: Twitter
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai and Abdul Salam Hanafi are senior members of Taliban’s delegation in its political office in Doha.
3,000 people from across country attended the peace advisory meeting of ‘Loya Girga’ which was held between April 29 and May 2 to set a blueprint for the country’s peace process.
RTA’s banner also coincided with the murder of 10 journalists in central Kabul in 30 April 2018 in a double-suicide bombing terror attack.
According to President Ghani, 45,000 Afghan soldiers have been killed since 2014 mainly in combat with Taliban.
The Taliban is also responsible for the death of most journalists in Afghanistan. In January 2016, the group targeted a bus that was carrying a commercial TV network’s journalists and killed seven of them.
The banner caused outrage among Afghan social media users and women’s right activists criticizing the national broadcaster for misrepresenting women and featuring Taliban figures.
In response to the criticisms, the broadcaster added a number of women in with normal headscarves on the right side with the left still remaining unchanged.
The banner also featured in RTA’s live broadcasts. Source: Facebook
“After seeing this banner on the #NationalRTA I only thought about the fact that our literate, experienced and those who have seen other countries more promote Taliban’s ideology,” women’s right activist Samira Hamidi twitted.
Ms Samira who is also a member of women advocacy group Afghan Women Network urged the broadcaster to apologies for this.
Afghan men pray as they attend during first day of the "loya jirga" (grand assembly) in Kabul, on April 29, 2019. Source: AFP
Other women with similar criticisms have asked the broadcaster to explain why it has put this banner on.
The broadcaster’s officials didn’t want to comment about the banner.
Ministry of Information and Culture’s spokesman Mohammad Sabir Momand said RTA is an independent organization now and the ministry has no control on it.
“National Radio Television now works as an independent media organization, but we have seen the image and its criticism and we will share our thoughts and suggestions with them very soon,” Mr Momand told SBS Dari.
While efforts to reach a peace agreement with Taliban and put an end to the country’s decades long war are going on in and outside the Afghanistan, some have described the national broadcaster’s move as a show of sympathy with the Taliban’s ideology and its extreme view about women.
Samay Hamid, a well-known Afghan author and a senior advisor to the president has interpreted the banner as a “null imagination” of peace with Taliban.
Mr Hamid said the banner had no meaning other than kind of sympathy and symphony with the insurgents group.
