Watchdog

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned the killing of Afghan journalist Javid Noori, who was shot dead by the Taliban in his native province of Farah in Afghanistan's west.

Noori, who worked for the Farah regional government as well as hosting two programs on local Radio Neshat, was travelling on a bus with around 30 other passengers when it was stopped and searched at a Taliban roadblock on January 5, RSF said in a statement on January 8.

The Taliban militants shot Noori after finishing their search, it added.

"This summary execution is the first death of a journalist in 2019 to be registered on RSF's barometer," said Reza Moini, the head of RSF's Afghanistan-Iran desk.

"There is an urgent need to end such practices. We reiterate our appeal to the international community to condition the start of any talks with the Taliban on their giving an explicit undertaking to respect international humanitarian law's basic treaties, starting with the Geneva Conventions," Moini said.

Noori, 27, began hosting a Radio Neshat program, Psychology Of The Green Life, in 2016, after completing his psychology studies at the University of Kabul.

For the past year, Noori had also been hosting the Friday evening program on social issues.

Local officials in Farah said Noori's body was found and turned over to his family on January 8.

A Taliban spokesman said the militant group killed Noori because he worked for the government.

He added that the Taliban had also seized 13 pro-government militiamen as suspected spies who were on the same bus.

The Taliban and other militant groups have repeatedly targeted Afghan journalists, killing 15 in 2018, the deadliest year yet for the Afghan media, according to RSF.

Afghanistan is ranked 118th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

With reporting by Reuters

ASTANA -- Police in Astana, Kazakhstan, briefly detained an RFE/RL reporter and cameraman on January 9 when they tried to cover a protest in front of the government's headquarters.

RFE/RL correspondent Orken Zhoyamergen says he and cameraman Erzhan Amirkhanov were trying to film several women involved in the protest when police stopped them and took them to a nearby police station.

Zhoyamergen said he did not have a chance to interview the protesters, who also were detained.

Police later told the RFE/RL journalists that they were detained "by mistake," Zhoyamergen said.

Zhoyamergen said police also asked him and Amirkhanov to delete all the footage they had recorded of the demonstration.

But he said they refused on the grounds that they were doing their jobs in a public space, their photos and video footage was their private property, and nobody had the authority to force them to destroy the materials.

Zhoyamergen said police did not insist on the destruction of the footage and later released them.

Zhoyamergen says he later learned that the women were calling for the immediate release of journalist Toqbergen Abiev, who was sentenced in December to one year in prison after a court in Astana found him guilty of illegally interfering in the activities of state bodies and courts.

The protesters insist the charges against Abiev were politically motivated.

The fate of the detained protesters was not immediately clear.