Zhwandoon TV is one of the few independent media outlets still operating under Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
The private Pashto-language station has been forced to comply with severe restrictions imposed on the media, including a ban on broadcasting music and foreign entertainment programs as well as orders for female TV presenters to cover their faces.
Now, the owner of Zhwandoon TV has accused the Taliban of attempting to shut down the Kabul-based station. "They want to annihilate our station," Mohammad Ismael Yoon told a press conference in Kabul on June 5.
The offices of Zhwandoon TV are located on government land. Then-President Hamid Karzai granted Yoon a 30-year lease for a nominal annual fee, allowing him to launch the station in 2008.
But Yoon said the Taliban has demanded that Zhwandoon TV either vacate the one-hectare of land or sign a new lease agreement that would dramatically increase the rent.
Yoon, a university professor and author, said the Taliban has intensified its efforts to close down the station since he publicly criticized the militants last month.
Yoon told a group of Taliban leaders on May 26 that their severe restrictions on female education were unjust. "No Islamic countries have completely banned women's education because of their interpretation of Islamic Shari'a law," he said.
Afghan journalists attend an event to mark World Press Freedom Day at the office of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association in Kabul on May 3.
Soon after seizing power in 2021, the Taliban banned girls above the sixth grade from attending school. In December, the hard-line Islamist group banned women from going to university. The decisions triggered international condemnation.
In his press conference on June 5, Yoon doubled down on his criticism of the Taliban, saying its draconian policies had forced thousands of educated Afghans to flee the country.
"They think that they have conquered and enslaved the Afghan people and they can order them to do anything," he said.
Yoon said that Najibullah Haqqani, the Taliban's minister of telecommunications and information technology, has demanded that he pay $16,000 per month in rent, an exorbitant figure for a station that has lost much of its advertising revenue. Yoon said Haqqani has also ordered him to pay a lump sum of several million dollars.
"I told the telecommunications minister that he can cancel the contract in light of recognized legal principles but not by force," Yoon said during his press conference.
In a statement, the Taliban said Yoon's lease agreement with the previous government was illegal. It also said that Yoon had "challenged the policies of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which was uncalled for and inappropriate," referring to the official name of the Taliban's unrecognized government.
Yoon is a self-proclaimed Pashtun nationalist who has been accused in the past of provoking ethnic tensions in Afghanistan. His critics have also labelled him a Taliban sympathizer.
Yoon said the Taliban, a predominately Pashtun group, is attempting to silence secular figures like him because it sees them as ideological competitors. Yoon made Zhwandoon TV a center for Pashtun literary figures and published and promoted their work.
"In the Taliban's internal deliberations, some have argued that without shutting our station, they cannot defeat the nationalist ideology," he said.
While not a leading station in Afghanistan, Zhwandoon's news bulletins, current affairs talk shows, and documentaries have carved out a loyal audience among Pashtun communities inside the country and among the diaspora.
Widening Crackdown
Independent media watchdogs said the Taliban's pressure on Zhwandoon TV is part of an attempt to stamp out any form of dissent.
"If Zhwandoon TV is closed, similar excuses can be invented to shut others," said Zia Bumia, the head of the South Asia Free Media Association in Afghanistan. "[It will] force Afghan journalists and media organizations to adopt self-censorship as a new normal."
The Taliban has intensified its crackdown on independent reporters and media outlets, according to Afghan media watchdogs.
In its annual report issued on May 3, the Afghanistan Journalist Center said cases of arbitrary arrests and detention, threats, and intimidation of journalists rose by around 60 percent in the past year. During that time, one journalist was killed and 21 wounded in attacks targeting media workers.
Afghan media advocacy group NAI said around half of Afghanistan's estimated 600 media outlets have closed since the Taliban seized power. Around two-thirds of reporters have lost their jobs in that time, according to NAI.
Female media workers have been disproportionately affected. The Taliban's restrictions on women's right to work has left many women journalists unable to carry out their jobs.