Mohammad Nasir Samadi
Abstract
In democratic societies, people have the right to be informed about the realities and developments of their own country and other parts of the world in order to participate in political affairs and major societal decision-making. Achieving this awareness depends on whether freedom of expression and freedom of the media are guaranteed in a country's legal system through the adoption of laws and regulations. In this regard, the United Nations General Assembly, in a resolution adopted on December 20, 1993, declared May 3 of each year as "World Press Freedom Day" to emphasize that governments should fulfill their commitments to support freedom of expression and the media and the free flow of information. Although there is no uniform approach to the establishment and management of the press in different countries of the world, in general, two different systems and methods can be explained: first, the preventive system, in countries with authoritarian systems where media activities are subject to prior approval; second, the punitive system, in countries with liberal systems where there are no restrictions on the establishment and management of the media. However, in Afghanistan, from the beginning of lawmaking to the present, where various political systems with different natures, from secular to religious, have been in power, it has not been clearly determined whether the legal system has adopted a preventive or punitive approach in the area of media freedom. The aim of this research is to determine the approach of different political systems in Afghanistan in this regard and to find out which method has been followed more. The research method is descriptive-analytical, which has been used to refer to legal texts, and related materials have been cited and analyzed. According to the author's research, a comparative analysis of Afghan legal texts in different periods regarding media freedom in accordance with the preventive or punitive method has not been done so far. As a result of examining about a century of lawmaking in Afghanistan, it was shown that the legal system of this country in the field of media activities has had a preventive and strict system, which is characteristic of totalitarian and authoritarian systems. Of course, short periods such as the 20 years of the rule of the republic were an exception rather than the rule. Now, after the fall of the republic and the suspension of the country's legal system, media activities have become devoid of a legal basis and face an uncertain future and unpredictable restrictions.
Keywords: Freedom of expression, freedom of the media, media rights, press rights in Afghanistan.