Kabul – A Female Journalist Murdered

Funeral of Zakia Zaki. Photo credit: Safiya Saifi (Pajhwok Afghan News)

Today I was struck when a female colleague told me that one of her good friends, a female journalist, was shot to death by mysterious gunmen. Zakia Zaki, director of a radio company, was killed a night before on her own bed.

It was scary news. Just about a week before, May 31, 2007, a popular Shamshad TV female news presenter, Sanga Amach, 22 years old, was shot to death. The actual motive and suspects remained mysterious. ‘Honor killing’ was among the possible motives. An honour killing is a murder, nearly exclusively of a woman, who has been perceived as having brought dishonor to her family. The killings are typically perpetrated by the victim’s own relatives or community. Such killings are often regarded as a “private matter” for the affected family alone, and courts rarely become involved or prosecute the perpetrators.

Being a journalist in Afghanistan is comparatively dangerous. It is not uncommon to hear this journalist to explode with a bomb or that journalist being kidnapped. But the risk is much higher for women.

The conservative don’t approve women to work (neither to go to schools), moreover to work in media sector. Last year I have heard about somen women officers working in a ministry were killed in Kandahar. Girl schools were burnt in Jalalabad. And now female journalists are slaughtered. The list surely keeps going.

I didn’t go by myself to cover the funeral of Zakia Zaki, but the photos that our photographer submitted to me were enough to shed my tears.

Sanga Amaj. Photo: Samshad TV

Following is an article taken from Sydney Morning Herald
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Afghan journalist shot dead in her bed
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
June 8, 2007

A PROMINENT Afghan journalist has been shot dead at her home near Kabul, the second such killing in five days.

Gunmen fired seven bullets into Zakia Zaki, the head of a radio station, as she slept with her eight-month-old son on Tuesday night. She died instantly.

The shooting took place in Parwan, a normally peaceful district north of Kabul not usually associated with Taliban activity.

The Interior Ministry condemned the “act of terror”. Police said on Wednesday that they had detained four men in connection with the killing.

Zaki, 35, had run the US-funded station Peace Radio since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. She was also the head teacher of a local school and had stood for parliament in 2005.

She had received warnings from powerful local commanders to tone down her reporting, the Afghan Independent Journalists Association said.

“This is a very bad day for female journalists. Our work is becoming increasingly dangerous,” said Farida Nekzad, of Pajhwok, an Afghan news agency.

The killing highlights the risks faced by reporters, particularly women. Conservative Afghans dislike women working in the media, and some who have ignored warnings have been killed. On Friday, a 22-year-old television news presenter, Sanga Amach, was murdered at her Kabul home. Amach had also been ordered by unidentified people to stop her work.

Authorities said they had arrested suspects in connection with her murder.

Two years ago a popular television presenter was shot dead at her house in Kabul. Her death was believed to have been carried out by a relative because she was deemed to have offended her family’s honour.

Independent media have flourished in Afghanistan since the Taliban was overthrown. Dozens of radio and television stations have opened. Many channels run mostly entertainment programs and some of their offerings are seen as too modern in the deeply conservative Islamic nation