NANGARHAR, Afghanistan - A reporter was shot and killed by gunmen in Afghanistan on Thursday.
According to CNN, Malalai Maiwand, a woman's right's activist and journalist with Enikas Radio and TV in Nangarhar was killed along with her driver in an attack on their vehicle in Jalalabad, which is the capital of the eastern province of Afghanistan's Nangarhar.
The deaths of Maiwand and her driver mark a total of ten journalists/media employees who've been killed in Afghanistan during 2020.
"She was on the way to office when the incident happened," Attaullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, said.
CNN notes that the area has been a hotbed of militant activity, most notably involving Islamic State, but no group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack against Maiwand, and Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied the Taliban's involvement in the incident.
The media outlet that Maiwand worked for had been targeted before. In 2018, its owner, Engineer Zalmay, was kidnapped for ransom in 2018.
CNN also reports that Maiwand is also not the first of her family to be targeted. Five years ago, her mother, who is also an activist, was killed by unknown gunmen.
"With the killing of Malalai, the working field for female journalists is getting more smaller and the journalists may not dare to continue their jobs the way they were doing before," Nai, an organization supporting media in Afghanistan, said in a statement.
In November, two other media employees were killed; Elyas Dayee was a Radio Azadi journalist who lost his life in a bomb blast that occurred in the southern Helmand province and Yama Siawash, a former TOLOnews presenter, was killed in a similar blast in Kabul.
Source: https://www.wbrz.com/news/female-journalist-civil-rights-activist-shot-to-death-by-gunmen-in-afghanistan/
