“The High Media Council (HMC) has not held any official assembly in a year, and this lack of activity has prolonged and even intensified most of the existing problems of the media.”
A number of officials from media unions and supporting institutions stated this issue in a meeting with the acting minister of information and culture yesterday, and demanded the activation of HMC.
In the meeting they also expressed their concerns over HMC’s lack of activity in previous years and its failure to achieve any significant accomplishment.
The High Media Council was established based on article 41 of the mass media law, and beside its other responsibilities, it was tasked to provide a general framework or national policy for media activities in the country.
One of the reasons for HMC’s inactivity as the officials of media unions and supporting institutions believe, is its failure to represent the media community of the country properly. Based on the laws of the mass media, two members of the council should be elected from amongst the journalists; whereas in violation of this law and during the tenure of Sayed Makhdom Rahin as the minister of information and culture, two persons were elected as the representatives of journalists for HMC, who have been unable to represent the journalists properly.
In yesterday’s meeting, it was decided that a guideline for the election of journalists’ representatives in HMC should be devised.
A committee comprising Mir Ali Asghar Akbarzada, Muhammad Faheem Dashty, Rahimullah Samandar, Hafizullah Barekzai, Mumtaz Haidari, and Bashir Atef representing journalists’ unions; and Mrs. Najiba Maram as representative of the ministry of information and culture were assigned to develop this guideline by the end of the week.
Muhammad Faheem Dashty, the Chief Executive of Afghanistan’s National Journalists Union and a member of the committee states: “the objective of the committee is to develop a guideline for the election of journalists’ representatives for HMC membership as well as their qualification criteria.”
He added: “we hope that the election of the right people as the representatives of journalists in HMC would pave the way for its more active role in the light of related laws of the country, and the problems which were caused by HMC’s inactivity would fade away.”
