Kabul – Newsroom Experience

Pajhwok Afghan News Agency is the biggest news agency in Afghanistan. I was lucky that I was introduced by a journalist friend of mine to the director of this company. And starting from today I experienced the life in the newsroom. The news of the office came out online and updated in minute basis. The subscription fee might be still high for Afghan standard, up to 200 dollars for big companies, NGOs, and embassies. The website of the news agency is http://www.pajhwok.com, and provides services in Farsi, Pashto, and English.

The director, Mr Danish, is a friendly man, and he provided me some books that I might read before deciding to wander around the country. He even promised some assistance from different parts of the country as the News Agency has several local offices in many cities of Afghanistan.

Mr. Danish requested me to come to the office early to meet with the photographer of the office. They only have one photographer in this city, some other correspondents in different provinces also provide them journalistic photography. The equipment used is a simple pocket Sony digital camera. Mr Danish said that I might take photos around Kabul and then make discussion with the photographer.

Mr Wali, the mere photographer for the Kabul office, speaks Urdu. He took me to bazaar. At first I prefered to go climb to the hill with the poor community, but he insisted that bazaar would be nice. This is not first time for me to see the Kabul bazaar. And we just wandered around half an hour before deciding to go back to office, at around 10 am. We took the shortcut passing through the slum area of Deh Afghanan, the place that initially I wanted to visit.

The slum, as some other Kabul slums, were houses on the body of the hills. The houses mostly are from mud, in poor condition. Three years ago someone from my embassy said that this community was from the lowest social status in Kabul, as having houses here they are exempted from tax. But my embassy warned me never ever to go alone here, as the area was still full of weapons. Three years after, today, I came here with an Afghan photojournalist.

The main problem here is water. Water never flows by itself to the dwellings of the inhabitants. People have to queue, with their jugs and bottles, to collect water from the public water pump. Some even carried water with donkeys. People were nice, friendly, and eager to be photographed. I was thinking of making in-depth reporting of this area, with such hospitable people in such difficult life in wartorn area. But my idea suddenly changed when this accident happened.

I was taking pictures of donkeys around a house in a small alley. Actually houses there were very densely built. Suddenly an angry young man came to me, slapped me. I knew something wrong happened, I immediately put my camera inside. The man kicked me. My photographer of mine just talked, but didnt help me physically. That angry man also kicked Wali, the journalist from Pajhwok. We left that area as soon as we could.

Later, Wali explained what happened. That angry man, a man from Pansher, supporter of Achmad Massud, thought I was taking pictures of his house. He was angry and wanted to grab my camera. He thought I was American spy. And that man, I didn’t notice, had a pistol under his vaist. Actually I could be shot in that slum. Weapon possesion in Afghanistan is illegal, but here in the slum, everything still can happen.

It was a shock for me. But I was lucky that I learnt about this quite early, that misunderstanding could be fatal in Afghanistan, no discussion needed, one can just slap, kick, or shoot you dead.

Later on that day, I still had another experience with another man from Pansher. Safia Milad, a female reporter of Pajhwork, is quite young for being a famous criminal reporter in the country. She is just 28 years old. She asked me to go with her to police station to make a reportage about a famous robber who was just caught.

First the policeman and person-in-charge were interviewed by the journalists. I understood nothing. The weapons possessed by the robber were shown on the table, and it became food of the camera men and photographer (me alone). I was astonished by the number of pistols this famous robber used to have.

Then the journalists were given chance to interview the criminal. He was anxious and shouted a lot. He was a big man, from Panshir, and didnt want his image to be taken by any type of camera. Safia said that the man was very big, very dangerous.

Weapon posessing, physical attack in slum, high criminal rate, huge gap between the rich (for example the people in Safi Landmark) and the poor (people from Deh Afghanan)…, the capital of Afghanistan is still exposing various kinds of risks of safety.