JULY 5, 2005
Posted: July 21, 2005
Habib Rahman Ibrahimi, Pajhwok Afghan News
HARASSED, THREATENED
Security guards at a government office in Kabul briefly detained and threatened Ibrahimi, a reporter for Pajhwok Afghan, a Kabul-based news agency.
Ibrahimi was reporting on Siddique Afghan, a prominent mathematician who had staged a hunger strike in front of the administrative affairs office in the capital, the reporter told CPJ. Afghan was protesting the government’s rejection of a request to publish his books, according to Pajhwok Afghan.
Guards took Ibrahimi into custody immediately after the reporter took photographs of Afghan’s protest signs and anti-American slogans, according to a report in Pajhwok Afghan. Ibrahimi said that he was held for 20 minutes and then threatened with unspecified consequences if he did not leave the premises immediately. Guards briefly confiscated his equipment and deleted his photographs.
Dadfar Spanta, an advisor to President Hamid Karzai, condemned the guards’ treatment of the journalist, according to Pajhwok Afghan.