Kabul weekly reappears after five years
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New Delhi, Jan 29 (IANS)
Five years after being driven out of existence by the Taliban, the
independent Kabul Weekly hit the streets in the Afghan capital this week. |
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The 10-page tabloid, carrying news in Dari,
Pashtun, English and French, has been brought out by a team of 14 journalists
headed by its editor Mohamad Fahim Dashty using a single computer, a printer
and a scanner, a Unesco statement here said. The U.N. body has helped in the re-launch of the
paper with a $12,000 grant. Dashty had survived the bomb blast that killed
Northern Alliance Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud. "Today, after 23 years of war and bloodshed
under the rule of the gun, we are witnessing clear signs of a better and
promising Afghanistan in the future, as the world community is committing
itself to the reconstruction of the country as a liberated and independent
state," the weekly said in an editorial. It took two months for the journalists, including
three women, to put together the revived Kabul Weekly (Hafteh Nameyeh Kabol),
which was founded in February 1993. The closure of the weekly later in the same year
and again in 1996 had sparked youth protests in Afghanistan`s main cities and
its circulation increased each time it reappeared, as it became the
best-known independent publication. Besides national and international news, sports
and economic issues, the paper will feature articles on history, women,
religious and economic issues and the role of young people in the
reconstruction of the country. "To ensure it circulates throughout the
country, Unesco and the World Association of Newspapers are contributing
their experience in restoring distribution networks for independent media in
difficult post-war situations, as they did in Yugoslavia," the statement
said. "Unesco will further support Afghanistan`s
independent media by setting up a media centre in Kabul," it said,
adding the centre will provide training, advice and information as well as
equipment communication facilities, including Internet connection, and space
for independent media to operate. Unesco has already contributed $10,000 to the
project, it said and added that at the request of Kabul TV, which resumed
telecast in November after the fall of the Taliban, the U.N. body had given
$35,000 for training journalists and technicians. |