Afghanistanâs first private television station went on air on Sunday in Kabul, some two years after the fall of the Taliban regime which arrested and punished those caught watching TV. Afghan TV is funded by an Afghan businessman and will have 18 hours of programming a day. Afghanistan has only ever had one state TV channel which broadcasts for a few hours in the evening, but under the Taliban there were no television stations and it was forbidden to listen to music or watch satellite broadcasts.
The free-to-air private station run by Ahmed Shah Afghanzai is a major step towards developing a private TV sector and intends to go national within a year, an achievement which will make it the countryâs first national channel. âAfghan TV has started operations with capital of 200,000 US dollars and the eventual capital to cover all the country via satellite is estimated at three million dollars,â Afghanzai said. During a one-month testing period the new station will broadcast Afghan, Indian and western music and films and hopes to broadcast 24 hours a day. âAfghan TV started its broadcast today,â said Afghan state television director Aziz Ahmed Arifar. âIt is the first private TV and the second Afghan TV registered at the ministry of information and culture.â Other private channels have registered with the ministry and are to start airing programmes soon.
State television, which broadcasts for limited hours at the moment, is also slated to soon become a 24-hour channel aired via satellite all over Afghanistan with financial help from India. Cable television operators began broadcasting in the capital Kabul in late 2002 showing Indian and some English programmes, content strongly criticized by the chief justice as âun-Islamicâ. Cable operators were banned for a while but were soon active again and are now present in some of the largest provinces. The new station has some programmes planned in which women will not be wearing the traditional head scarf or may be wearing western clothes, a stance which could provoke a strong reaction from Islamist groups in Afghanistan which recently protested against broadcasts of women singing on state television. Afghanzai is concerned but said: âThere will be some reactions from certain circles but we will continue to go the way we have chosen.â |