Mohammad Shafi Karimi
Journalism is my dream and my favorite profession which I loved since childhood
This is Mohammad Shafi Karimi; I am a Journalist/Reporter who has worked most of the leading media outlets such as TOLO news and Ariana News TV as well as with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. I am originally from Charkh District of Logar Province, a place where the government only controls a small area where the governor’s office is located. Taliban and Islamic State fighters are controlling the rest of the area at my birthplace.
Journalism is my dream and my favorite profession which I loved since childhood, the same passion brought me to Radio Azadi in Kabul but going forward along with the security situation in other parts of the country the circle got tighter for journalists too and in the first year the target killing of journalists started however, the past four months was a tragedy for the family of journalists in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, on 12 November 2020 I lost a friend and colleague Elyas Dayee who worked with us in Radio Azadi from southern Helmand. The terrorist groups had placed bomb in his car and the explosion took him from us.
Losing Dayee and the existing threats to office made the leadership of Radio Azadi lockdown the office in Kabul urging journalists to avoid movements in the city and reduce reporting from unnecessary parts of the city.
As I was mostly spending time at home and reporting online, I received a call on 23 December 2020 from a woman asking for help and justice without even introducing herself properly. Previously I had received a call from Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security “Intelligence Department” alerting journalists that a group of ISIS loyalists both male and female, had started a campaign to identify and assassinate journalists in the city. According to the call, the militant fighters were using the same tactic in their operation against journalists calling them for face-to-face meetings.
I shared the recording of the lady's phone call with the intelligence and they confirmed that the suspicions were valid. I was promised to receive information about each single development from the Afghan intelligence but they shared nothing.
The anxiety for my life and the security of my wife, parents, brother and sister increased after the phone call and its confirmation from NDS. The woman calling me claimed in the beginning of the call that she was illiterate but later as I was checking whether she knew me by name she replied “Wait let me check the list” I am still suspicious about that list, how many more names were there?
I had interviewed the Islamic State members that were in Afghan intelligence detention on November 20th, 2019 when I had a trip to Nangarhar’s Achin district and returning back to Kabul, I interviewed the other women members in Kabul.
I did another report on August 3rd, 2020 about the attack on Nangarhar prison when several members of a militant group broke into the prison. I am certain that these reports are somehow linked to the dead threats I was receiving and that they might already have know my address and have my pictures from the video grabs.
As I was convinced that the phone call was a threat from the IS, I immediately applied for a Turkish visa with support from the embassy and the committee to Protect journalists. I left Afghanistan to Turkey on February 5th, 2021 when I received my visa and I had to leave everyone behind except my wife who came with me.
In more than two months we were granted D-Type Visas for France in Istanbul and we came to France on April 23rd, 2021.
The number of religious extremists who have a lot of power in Afghanistan is quite high. In most of the cases, they try to create challenges on the path of people like me who are advocating for human rights and freedom of speech. Worse is, they even try and plan to kill such individuals.
As a journalist, throughout my career in Afghanistan, I have tried to raise my voice against taboos and injustice. I have made critical reports and I have tried to advocate for justice. However, I have been constantly threatened by religious extremists. Making reports about virginity, challenges for the LGBTQ community and supporting human rights has put my life on the edge to death.
Such extremists threatened me and my wife with death in January 2020, because we are both journalists. At times, they called us ‘non-believers’. It is important to state that a big reason my wife and I got married was sharing the same mindset and willing to fight against such people. Even now that we live in France, this fight against arrogance continues.
