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Journalists Qai Azimy and Hameedullah Shah Held in Kabul

by Barbara McPherson | June 15, 2009 at 10:55 am

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Two journalists working for Al Jazeera, Qai Azimy and Hameedullah Shah, are being held incommunicado in Kabul. They were ordered to report to the Afghanistan intelligence headquarters and have not been heard from since.

Azimy, a senior producer for Al Jazeera English, had travelled to the headquarters after being told to meet authorities for an interview, two days before campaigning for the country's presidential elections was due to begin.

Shah, who works for the Al Jazeera Arabic television channel, was picked up from the network's bureau by two officers.

The Al Jazeera correspondent in Kabul, David Chater, has stated that they are being stonewalled as to where the two professional journalists are being held or for what reason. He did speculate that authorities may have been angered at an interiew that Azimy conducted with a Taliban leader.

In an interview conducted by Azimy, a Taliban leader said he had hundreds of men under his control and 12 suicide bombers waiting to strike.

With campaigning for the presidential elections due to start on Tuesday, the growing strength of the Taliban insurgency is due to be a central issue.

This disappearance of accredited journalists into a nation's bureaucratic labyrinths seems to be happening with increasing frequency.

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