Unveiled courage: Afghanistan’s brave female journalists take on Taliban

Beheshta Arghand went to work in a hijab: not a Taliban-approved burqa. Then she was sitting metres from one of the group’s leaders.

This is what courage looks like in Afghanistan: female journalist Beheshta Arghand grilling a Taliban leader about why his men are conducting house to house searches in the city they now own. Her city.

As Kabul’s new masters roamed the streets this week, women were nowhere to be seen, retreating to their homes in fear. Millions are terrified of an imminent return to the Taliban’s brutal past and vengeance against those who have opposed them.

Arghand was frightened, too. But she went to work anyway, determined to present her news show on Kabul’s biggest commercial TV station, TOLO TV.

“I came to the office because I want to show to other women we can work, because we have struggled for this day,” she tells The Australian.

Unexpected guest

As she prepared for the first bulletin of the day on Tuesday a producer told her they had an unexpected guest: Taliban spokesman Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad.

Arghand would be interviewing him.

“I was shocked,” she tells The Australian. “It was very difficult for me.”

Many of TOLO TVs journalists have been explicitly designated by the Taliban as military targets “due to their disrespectful and hostile actions towards the Afghan Mujahid nation.”

Twelve of its reporters have been killed in the past five years. The network has brought lifestyle, dramas and entertainment programs to the people of Afghanistan for nearly 20 years, in defiance of Taliban threats.

Now she was sitting two metres across from one of the group’s leaders. No Afghan woman had ever interviewed a Taliban leader inside the country before.

“It did not seem it was a big issue for him,” she says, “but it was a big issue for me.”

Other female reporters would interview Taliban leaders over the coming days, but they were foreigners who would fly home at the end of their assignment. Afghan journalists like Arghand will have to live with the consequences of their reporting. And the Taliban have long memories.

Arghand had arrived for work dressed modestly in black with a hijab covering her hair but she wasn’t sure if that was going to enough for the deeply conservative Taliban, who insist on full burqas for women.

But Arghand plunged into the interview without hesitation, just two metres from the Taliban envoy.

“The entire world now recognises that the Taliban are the real rulers of the country,” Mr Hemad told her.

Beheshta Arghand grilling a Taliban spokesman Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad. Picture: Supplied

‘I controlled my feelings’

Arghand pursued him about the widespread reports that the Taliban was hunting for its former enemies in Kabul, going house to house in reach of “traitors” who had worked for the Americans or the Ashraf Ghani government.

“I controlled my feelings and my body language,” she says proudly.

In the streets outside, Arghand’s reporter colleagues, including women like Hasiba Atakpal and Zahra Rahimi, were braving the glares of Taliban fighters as they continued to do what they had done for years, filing reports from the frontlines of the action.

TOLO TV’s Australian owner, Saad Mohseni, is awe of his reporting team.

“Extraordinary, extraordinary courage, I mean I can’t tell you what character these women have. The guys too, but for women to be doing what they’re doing You cannot get better reporters than these.

“I’m sure they’re nervous and I’m sure they’re scared but they’re courageous, despite the fears they may have.”

Beheshta Arghand’s interview is the first time an Afghan woman has ever interviewed a Taliban leader inside the country. Picture: Supplied

Mohseni isn’t sure what the Taliban takeover means for his business, or for the future of the media in Afghanistan.

For the moment, the network’s news and entertainment programs are going to air as usual, with some minor tweaks.

“Our programming is a little bit less provocative in terms of the entertainment shows, until we get the lay of the land and figure out what they want, the new rules; but for now we’re holding our breath and we’re just going about our business.

“We’re taking it easy with the music programs, especially with women dancing in, like miniskirts, you know, we’re reassessing every hour.”

Mohseni is in London. The Melbourne born media mogul was out of Afghanistan on business when the lightning fast Taliban takeover occurred.

“My sister, don’t worry, everything will be okay,” Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad said after the interview. Picture: Supplied

He doesn’t hold out much hope that the Taliban’s current charm offensive will last.

“Why would they continue this liberal policy when it comes to media? I just cannot see it. And they also have obligations to their constituencies, you know, the religious establishment for these hard core people. So maybe with the news networks it will be more flexible but with the entertainment stuff I think that they’re going to be reluctant to allow us to do the things that we’ve done over the years.

Mohseni has asked contacts who are close to the Taliban to arrange a meeting with their senior leadership. He wants to return as soon as possible but is being told he should be cautious: wait just a couple of weeks, see how things pan out.

“Some of their actions are positive right now, the fact that they come into our station, and get interviewed by a woman is highly encouraging because they’re matching their words with deeds.

‘My sister, don’t worry’

“This is how media facilitates social change — one guy comes and speaks, then there will be a second and third and fourth guy. And before you know it becomes standard routine for any Taliban guy to come and talk to a woman, and that’s how you break barriers.”

Beheshta Arghand is also hoping that turns out to be true.

After her interview with Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad was over, he said to her: “My sister, don’t worry, everything will be okay.”

Arghand isn’t so sure, but of this she is certain: “We don’t want to go back to where women stay in the home and don’t work. We don’t want to go back to the past. ”