(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has voiced its support for the Afghan journalists’ groups who are calling on Mullah Dadullah to free Adjmal Nasqhbandi, the guide and fixer of “La Repubblica” correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was himself released by the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand on 19 March 2007. “This case will not […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders has voiced its support for the Afghan journalists’ groups who are calling on Mullah Dadullah to free Adjmal Nasqhbandi, the guide and fixer of “La Repubblica” correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was himself released by the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand on 19 March 2007.
“This case will not be over until Mastrogiacomo’s Afghan guide has been freed and the family of his murdered driver have obtained justice,” the press freedom organisation said. “The Taliban no longer have any reason to hold Nasqhbandi, who was just accompanying Mastrogiacomo. The Italian and Afghan authorities have a duty to keep trying to obtain his release. His life is just as precious as Mastrogiacomo’s. We are also very worried about the way Mastrogiacomo was freed, and the implications it could have for foreign and Afghan journalists working in Afghanistan.”
Together with Nasqhbandi’s family, Afghan journalists’ organisations demonstrated on 20 March outside the Information Ministry in Kabul to demand his release. Nasqhbandi has worked as a fixer for visiting “La Repubblica” journalists for nearly four years. His father, Ghulam Haidar, said: “It is not fair. They freed five Taliban to get the Italian released, but they will not free a single Taliban to get my son released.”
Rahimullah Samander, the head of a journalists’ organisation, condemned the way Mastrogiacomo was freed and the consequences it could have for journalists in Afghanistan. “We fear that journalists will increasingly become targets for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Around 100 relatives and friends of Sayed Agha, the driver whose throat was cut by the Taliban, demonstrated the same day outside a hospital in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, which is run by an Italian doctor who participated in the negotiations. They accused the Afghan government of ignoring the driver and guide. “President Karzai spoke about the Italian yesterday [19 March] but said nothing about the Afghan driver,” an uncle of Agha said. “No one tried to get him released.”
Mastrogiacomo has described his driver’s execution in “La Repubblica”. “I can still see it in my mind,” he wrote. “I got up. Four men seized the driver and pushed his head into the sand. They sliced his throat until his head had been cut off. I thought my turn had come. They cleaned the knife on his coat. They attached the head to the body and then took it and threw it in a river.”
Mastrogiacomo was released in exchange for five Taliban, including some of the organisation’s spokesmen.
