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RFE/RL’s Afghan Service: Radio Azadi

Despite significant pressure from the Taliban, Radio Azadi is one of the most popular and trusted media outlets in Afghanistan.

About

  • Operating out of Prague, broadcasts 24/7 in Dari and Pashto- languages on short- and medium-wave and digitally.
  • Azadi covers the changes to Afghans' lives since the Taliban returned.
  • Provides a platform for the most vulnerable -- women and girls, victims of violent extremism, the LGBTQI+ community, and youth -- to share their experiences.
  • In cooperation with Learn Afghanistan, launched​ radio classrooms (2022), offering lessons in history, geography, chemistry, and biology for girls in grades 7-12 who are now barred from attending school.
  • Radio Azadi provided groundbreaking coverage through user-generated content of Afghan women’s protests in Kabul against the Taliban's restrictions on their rights.
  • Azadi regularly receives supportive messages from listeners. The Voices from Afghanistan exhibit at the Library of Congress showcased handwritten scrolls and letters Afghans

Impact

January – December 2022

  • Website: 6.4 million; 11.5 million page views
  • Facebook: 36.3 million video views; 28.9 million engaged users
  • YouTube: 2.9 million views; 195,000 subscribers
  • Instagram: 2.5 million video views; 502,000 followers

Radio Azadi has been a staple of daily life in Afghanistan for over 20 years, commonly heard in public settings from marketplace to taxis.

Updated: April 2023

Media Climate

  • Closed Kabul bureau and evacuated journalists (August 2021); taken off airways (November 2022); websites blocked (February 2023).
  • Journalists Maharram Durrani, Abadullah Hananzai, and Sabawoon Kakar were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul (2018). Mohammad Ilyas Dayee was killed in a targeted bomb attack (2020).
  • Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index ranks Afghanistan 156th out of 180 countries.

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