TIRINKOT (Pajhwok): Security forces have arrested a local radio journalist five days ago in central Uruzgan province, colleagues and family members said on Saturday.
The Association of Independent Journalists in a press release said Shamsullah Shams, who works with Salam Uruzgan radio, was arrested five days ago by Uruzgan Police Headquarters.
The statement said security forces were tight-lipped about Shams’s arrest. The ' association considered such arrests of journalists in Uruzgan as worrying.
The family of the arrested journalist says that for the past five days, he has been spending days and nights in prison without committing any crime.
Shams' father, Hayatullah, says that his son was arrested near his house by the men of a local security post. He asked journalists' support organizations and other institutions to help in the release of his son.
A colleague of Shams in Uruzgan told Pajhwok on condition of anonymity that before this, a journalist of another local media outlet was arrested by security forces and he was incarcerated for two month without any criminal case. According to him, if such arrests continue, journalists will be forced to give up their profession.
Officials of the security forces in Uruzgan have so far said nothing about the arrest of the local journalist.
Pajhwok tried several times to get the opinion of the police headquarters and the Department of Information and Culture regarding the arrest of Shams, but they refused to say anything.
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