Tweets about woman anchor interviewing Taliban official in war-torn Afghanistan lead to both hope and apprehension

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, August 17

As the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan following city after city falling into their hands, the world is feeling concerned about the hapless people fleeing the war-torn country.

With Taliban having history of using oppressive tactics particularly against women, twitterati from across the globe have been concerned about the future of the country. There have been reports that the Taliban have been against women working at public places and have warned them against being present at such workplaces.

Amid such uncertainty, a tweet by TOLOnews on the microblogging site shows a woman anchor interviewing a Taliban official. Many Afghan journalists have retweeted it.

The tweet carrying a TV clip from the news channel shows host Beheshta Arghand interviewing Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a close member of the Taliban’s media team, about Kabul’s situation and house-to-house searches in the city.

Earlier, in a tweet, Saad Mohseni, Director of the MOBYgroup, had tweeted, “For those worried about @TOLOnews, I can assure you our folks are ok and that we have continued with our broadcasting, uninterrupted throughout this “transition”.”

Mustafa47 @CombatJourno, a senior journalist and counternarcotics broadcast manager with @RFERL, has also tweeted about the development, saying: ToloNews female anchor interviews a Taliban official in their Kabul studio.

The tweets have evoked mixed reactions.  “I’m not at all optimistic that this will last, but hopefully, I’ll be wrong. At the very least, there is something vaguely promising about it.” said one twitter user.

 “At least he accepts being interviewed by a woman.” Yet another replied, “Glad they are not upset at her being a female anchor,'' commented another user.