Members of the Afghan Journalists’ Support Organization (AJSO) discussed with Stephanie Huber-Nagel a representative and coordinator of the Afghanistan section of the German Reporters Without Borders (RSF), about the evacuation of Afghan journalists.
Mrs. Huber-Nagel, the coordinator of the Afghan branch of RSF organization, in response to the question of when the process of evacuating journalists from the country will begin, says: “After the announcement of the new process of evacuating Afghan journalists to Germany, RSF Germany alone has received thousands of requests. There is no doubt that the majority of applicants are not journalists.
According to this organization, the overwhelming volume of these requests has slowed down the process.
She added that all requests are carefully being vetted so that vulnerable journalists can be identified and evacuated. She further added that the RSF in Germany only deals with the requests of journalists stuck in Afghanistan and that the request of Afghan journalists in third countries has been forwarded to the RSF in France to speed up the process.
She requested the Afghan journalists to always follow the RSF website or stay in touch with the AJSO in order to be aware of the latest cases in the evacuation process.
Economic challenges, security threats, visa extension and psychological pressures of the Afghan journalists inside and in third countries were also among the major issues raised by AJSO in this meeting.
RSF promised that it will put the emergency assistance request form on its website again so that Afghan journalists can use it to receive the necessary assistance if approved.