Afghan mourners held emotionally charged funeral ceremonies on Thursday for seven employees of leading national TV channel Tolo who were killed in a Taliban suicide bombing, which rights groups denounced as a “war crime”.
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“Attacks aimed at crushing independent media organizations in Afghanistan are a direct assault on the very foundation of Afghan democracy-a free and open press”, said Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
“Murdering those who work to enlighten, educate, and entertain will not stop Afghans from exercising their universal human right to freedom of expression”, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said in a statement condemning the attack.
The van had reportedly just left the news station to drive TOLO staff to their homes at the end of the day when it came under attack.
“A suicide attacker rammed into a civilian minibus on Darul Aman road and there have been casualties”, Kabul deputy police chief Sayed Gul Agha Rohani, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company.
The Taliban openly threatened to target the television channel a year ago after it reported allegations of summary executions, rape, kidnappings and other abuses by Taliban fighters during the battle for Kunduz.
A bomber blew up a bus carrying employees of Afghanistan’s largest media organization on Wednesday, leaving seven people dead and 26 others wounded.
They are part of a media expansion in Afghanistan that many consider among the country’s major recent achievements. The statement explicitly listed both Tolo TV and its news channel rival 1TV as “military targets” for allegedly serving as “informational warfare tools of the American and Crusading forces”.
The Taliban claim responsibility for the bombing, wrote Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban’s self-declared Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, via email.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack.
The peace push is being pursued by Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US.
Taliban militants have increasingly targeted sites in Kabul amid deepening rifts over efforts to restart peace talks.
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Tolo is one of the most popular television stations in Afghanistan.
