Making Waves

Afghanistan’s national broadcaster is aiming to improve, expand its true representation of the country, its people

KABUL: Despite financial constraints, Afghanistan’s national broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) is aiming to improve and expand its ‘true’ representation of Afghanistan and its people, Managing Director RTA Molavi Ahmadullah Waseeq informed Bol News in an interview in Kabul.

Showing an example of managing things within a tight budget, Ahmadullah Waseeq informed that RTA (or Mili Radio Television) has just over 1,700 employees across Afghanistan. “RTA has 1,100 employees, including 350 females in the capital. All our staff is getting regular salaries and in fact, we are soon giving everyone a pay raise,” Waseeq added.

Entering into the ninth month of being the top boss of RTA or Mili Radio Television, Ahmadullah Waseeq reveals that the pressure and stress of his job are immense as often 98 per cent of good work is washed away if there was even one or two per cent low performance in portraying the image correctly. “Tens of officials and many more important people start calling and texting immediately if something, like a news item or event coverage, doesn’t go according to the set rules. It adds to the pressure,”

Aged 45, Ahmadullah Waseeq has remained one of the most active but little-known media persons of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) during the long war in Afghanistan. “I had my elementary education till ninth grade at the Baba Hotuk School in Zabul, where I also got my religious education at the madrassa of Sheikh Ubair ur Rahman. I also studied at the Jihadi Madrassa of Mullah Muhammad Omar in Kandahar before joining the Taliban movement at a young age as a military man. A year after the takeover of Kabul in September 1996, I started working as a reporter for the Shariat Ghag (Voice of Shariah) radio on the culture and information in Kandahar. I also worked as the editor of Tolo e Afghan newspaper in Kandahar,” informed Waseeq, whose all four children are acquiring both religious and elementary education in Afghanistan.

He then moved to Kabul and joined the Afghan National Radio as a reporter. “I was also in charge of the art and literature wing for a short time and when the Taliban took over Mazar-e-Sharif in August 1998, I became the head of the information and culture department there till the US invasion of Afghanistan,” Waseeq added.

Sharing an account of how the Taliban used to conduct their duties of providing the news of their resistance in the past two decades, Waseeq said that they would use various pseudo names, communicate through emails, WhatsApp social media app and regular monthly meetings across Afghanistan. “I managed the Taliban’s official Al Emarah website, managing Dari, Pashto and English language websites. At the same time, I was in charge of the South- West region of the information and culture commission of the Taliban,” the RTA Managing Director added.

“Almost all our work was online. We had only a small number of offices across the country but only a few people knew about those and a small number of colleagues would visit those places occasionally. But most times our work was online, like communication and distribution of work through emails and WhatsApp. We would have monthly meetings and colleagues of the regions where a meeting would take place would come to those meetings,” he revealed.

“Our main focus was on sharing accurate and timely news of our military actions and any incidents in our controlled areas with our own websites and news groups, and international media. We had a 24/7 working module and news of any military action by our fighters or against us would be online on all our websites within 15-20 minutes,” Waseeq stated.

Revealing how the Taliban were able to get quick information and the manner of verifying that information, Ahmadullah Waseeq said that they had appointed contact persons in each district of Afghanistan who, after getting any information about an occurrence would share it with the Taliban shadow governor for his concerned province. “The governor would confirm the news from various sources before sharing it with the provincial in charge nominated by the Taliban culture commission. The in-charge would then share the information with either Zabihullah Mujahid for East and North or Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who was responsible for South-West of Afghanistan. The news would then become valid for our spokesperson, and it would be shared with all Taliban websites and media groups, and international news agencies through emails.

The entire process would usually take less than half an hour,” Ahmadullah Waseeq revealed.

In 2016, Ahmadullah Waseeq was made the deputy of the Taliban Culture Commission which was headed by Zabihullah Mujahid. After the Taliban took over Kabul for the second time in August 2021, Ahmadullah Waseeq was made the first secretary of the Information and Culture Ministry’s department of Youth Affairs. Just like in most cases with the Taliban, Waseeq does not remember the exact date of his appointment in his current position but is informed that it was “eight or nine months ago”.

Talking about his selection as the RTA managing director, Molavi Ahmadullah says he did not apply for the position or had any desire of getting any position in the Taliban setup. “All responsibilities in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) are given to people after consultations of the cabinet and elders. You cannot get any position just by wishing to be there. I did not ask for this position, but they, and most importantly the Taliban supreme leader probably saw my past experiences in the media and decided to give me this responsibility,” he argued.

The Afghan national television was launched on Afghan Independence Day, 19 August 1978 in Kabul while more stations were commissioned in Kandahar, Jalalabad and Herat were commissioned in 1983 and in Badakhshan and Ghazni in 1985. Television went completely silent in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2001 as the Taliban banned television in the country.

Molavi Waseeq argued that in the past the RTA got insufficient attention as updated equipment was not purchased but money was spent on rented equipment. While his aim was to acquire new and up-to-date equipment. “I don’t claim I have turned everything around but I can surely say that we have brought many positive changes in the RTA. Previously it was only Kabul focused and there was little representation of the provinces. Now, we are in regular contact with the provinces and they are part of all our transmissions now. It is now a competition between the centre and the provinces,” he added.

Ahmadullah Waseeq added that being the national broadcaster, the RTA was representing Afghanistan but unjust treatment by influential social media, like Facebook blocking RTA’s page with over four million followers was not helping in bridging the distances with the world.

“We are the face of the IEA. People around the world will try to know about the IEA government and Afghanistan through the RTA lens. It is a practical institution and the responsibility of RTA is to make the people aware and to lead them to develop a consensus. We aim to show the world the image of reconstruction of Afghanistan as well as the plight of the people in absence of the international community and their assistance to Afghanistan,” Waseeq added.

He further said that except for four or five new arrivals since the change of the government in Afghanistan, the RTA staff remained the same. “My predecessor left the position of his free will and joined Ariana news before leaving Afghanistan. We have the old directors from the past government for the news, transmission, technical, financial and administration, human resources, and planning and policy departments, and the social media,” Ahmadullah Waseeq added.