New York, August 26, 2025—Taliban authorities must immediately release Afghan journalist Shikib Ahmad Nazari, who has been detained by Taliban since July after a raid at his office in the latest crackdown on journalists reporting for overseas media, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Nazari, who reports for Japan’s Nippon TV News among others, was detained on July 24 after around 15 Taliban intelligence agents and morality police raided his office in the capital Kabul, according to two journalists who are aware of Nazari’s situation and who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, fearing Taliban reprisals. Nazari was held at a detention center of the morality police for a week before he was transferred to a Taliban intelligence prison in Kabul later, the same sources said.
Nazari’s arrest was only confirmed publicly after a Taliban-linked account on social media platform X released a video of the journalist on August 21. The post was deleted shortly after publication, for unknown reasons.
“The arbitrary detention of Shikib Ahmad Nazari is yet another example of the Taliban’s brutal crackdown on the media,” said CPJ Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi. “They should release the journalist immediately, and stop coercing journalists into making confessions, which underscore their atrocious treatment of the press.”
In the video, reviewed by CPJ before it was removed, Nazari said he has worked with the Japanese outlet and that he posted content from women’s rights activists who have criticized the Taliban morality police in an NTV WhatsApp group. The Taliban consider sharing such information a criminal act. On his X profile, Nazari said he has also worked as a freelance reporter for CNN and the British newspaper The Daily Mail.
Journalists have told CPJ that Taliban morality police consider Afghan journalists who work with exiled media as “permissible to kill.” The Taliban have arrested a number of those reporting for exiled media.
Nippon TV News and the Taliban deputy spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment on Nazari’s detention.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.