
Taliban members while searching for a Deutsche Welle (DW) journalist shot down a member of his family and injured another one, DW reported on Friday. The terror group had been raiding houses to search and find the journalist.
DW Director General Peter Limbourg in a statement said, “The killing of a close relative of one of our editors by the Taliban yesterday is inconceivably tragic, and testifies to the acute danger in which all our employees and their families in Afghanistan find themselves.”
“It is evident that the Taliban are already carrying out organized searches for journalists, both in Kabul and in the provinces. We are running out of time!” He further added.
As reported by Reuters, the Islamist militant movement had promised it would allow free media – banned when it was last in power from 1996 to 2001 – when it gave its first news conference on Tuesday since capturing the capital Kabul.
According to DW, the Taliban has raided the houses of three DW journalists. Several Afghan journalists were reported to be kidnapped or killed, including Indian photojournalist Danish Siddiqui.
DW along with several other German news organizations in an open letter had called on the German government to set up an emergency visa program for Afghan staff.
“With the Taliban takeover, the lives of Deutsche Welle employees and their families in Afghanistan are under acute threat,” said the head of DW’s broadcasting council, Karl Jüsten, and the head of DW’s administrative council, Peter Clever.
“Alone the fact that they worked for a western broadcaster could result in torture and death,” they added.