(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 6 September 2001 RSF press release: In a letter addressed to the Taliban foreign minister, Maulvi Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) protested the press ban on the trial of eight western aid workers from Shelter Now International who are to be sentenced in Kabul […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is a 6 September 2001 RSF press release:
In a letter addressed to the Taliban foreign minister, Maulvi Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) protested the press ban on the trial of eight western aid workers from Shelter Now International who are to be sentenced in Kabul Supreme Court. RSF asked the minister to allow journalists to freely cover the trial. “This measure is a good example of the totalitarianism of the Taliban government,” said Robert Ménard, RSF sceretary-general. “How can we believe in a fair trial under these conditions?” he added.
According to information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, on 6 September, journalists who went to the Kabul court to cover the trial of the eight American, Australian and German members of the organisation Shelter Now International were kept away by the Taliban militia. The hearings, which started on 4 September, are being held behind closed doors. Maulvi Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban foreign minister, was in favour of a public trial, but Judge Saqib, who is in charge of the case, went against his wishes.