Directorate of State Newspapers Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s central state print press is administered by the Directorate of State Newspapers, an internal unit of the Deputy Ministry for Publications within the Ministry of Information and Culture. Its publications include several of the country’s longest-established newspapers. Anis began publication on 25 May 1927, principally in Dari; the Library of Congress records the Pashto-language Hewad as beginning in 1949; and the English-language Kabul Times was established on 27 February 1962. Shariat, the Taliban’s official newspaper during its first period in power, resumed publication on 3 November 2021 after an interruption of approximately 20 years. Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the newspapers have served as official outlets carrying government statements, religious material and approved coverage of national affairs.

Media assets

Publishing: Hewad Daily, Shariat Daily, Anis Daily, The Kabul Times

Anis, Hewad and The Kabul Times are documented as operating in both print and online formats. The Ministry of Information and Culture also lists Shariat as a current publication, although its precise print and digital publication arrangements were not independently documented.

Ownership and governance

The Directorate of State Newspapers operates within the Ministry of Information and Culture and has no separate legal personality or autonomous governance structure identified in publicly available sources. In March 2026, the ministry described the Directorate as part of its Deputy Ministry for Publications when it organised the 64th-anniversary ceremony of The Kabul Times. The ministry therefore exercises direct administrative authority over the newspapers rather than acting merely as an external regulator.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reported in August 2025 that the ministry runs Anis, Hewad and The Kabul Times in print and online and included them among approximately 15 major outlets forming the Taliban administration’s expanding media apparatus. No independent governing board, external nomination process, protected editorial appointments or oversight mechanism was identified for the Directorate or its publications.

Sheikh Shir Ahmad Haqqani was introduced as Minister of Information and Culture on 3 September 2025, replacing Mullah Khairullah Khairkhwa. The change did not alter the Directorate’s institutional position within the ministry.

The newspapers also operate within the wider system through which the Taliban administration directs Afghan media. RSF reports that journalists receive instructions from several institutions, including the Ministry of Information and Culture, the General Directorate of Intelligence, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and the Government Media and Information Center. The Media Complaints and Rights Violations Commission was re-established under the authority of the information ministry rather than as an independent regulator.

Source of funding and budget

The Directorate is an internal government unit and its newspapers operate using state administrative, staffing and publishing resources. No itemised post-2021 budget, audited financial statements or reliable breakdown of revenue from sales, advertising or other sources was identified. The newspapers can therefore be described as state-funded, but the exact costs covered or the proportion of income supplied through the state budget cannot be specified.

Editorial independence

The Directorate’s newspapers have no institutional editorial independence from the Taliban administration. They are administered by the ministry responsible for information policy and publish within a system of official directives, ideological restrictions and pre-publication controls. CPJ describes the government newspapers as part of a media structure tightly aligned with the Taliban’s ideology.

Shortly after returning to power in 2021, the Taliban issued eleven media rules prohibiting publication or broadcasting of material considered contrary to Islam, insulting to national figures or in violation of privacy. The rules do not clearly define these categories. Human Rights Watch reported in October 2025 that Taliban authorities review reports before publication and censor material considered harmful to public attitudes or morale, while journalists routinely limit themselves to approved subjects and official events.

The Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, promulgated in August 2024, introduced further content restrictions, including controls on images of living beings and women’s voices. Officials from the Virtue and Vice Ministry inspect media premises, while local information and culture departments may require journalists to submit material before publication. Enforcement varies between provinces, but the framework gives officials broad discretion to intervene in editorial decisions.

The status of the former press law is not entirely clear. RSF reports that the Ministry of Justice announced in 2024 that the March 2015 press law had been repealed while the Ministry of Information and Culture was preparing amendments intended to align it with Sharia. The Afghanistan Journalists Center reported that the final status of the amended mass-media and access-to-information laws remained uncertain in 2025 and that their application was largely confined to administrative matters such as licensing and taxation. No operative legal provision protecting the editorial independence of the state newspapers was identified.

AI and digital policy

The newspapers distribute material through websites and other official digital channels. No publicly available editorial policy governing generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, automated production or disclosure of AI-assisted content was identified for the Directorate or its individual titles. No national framework specifically governing the use of AI by Afghan state media was identified.

Classification rationale

The Directorate of State Newspapers remains classified State-Controlled (SC). It is an internal unit of the Ministry of Information and Culture, which directly administers its publications. No separate legal personality, independent governing board, protected editorial appointments, external nomination process or autonomous oversight mechanism was identified.

The newspapers form part of the Taliban administration’s official media apparatus and operate within a directive system enforced by the information ministry, intelligence authorities, the Virtue and Vice Ministry and other government bodies. Content may be subject to advance review, while open-ended religious and political restrictions prevent independent editorial decision-making.

July 2026