AT-KABUL: Nai Supporting Open Media in Afghanistan, a media watchdog, said that delay in approval of the media job regulation has put the local journalists in trouble as they were facing different types of job restrictions and were deprived of privileges.
In a press conference here on Monday, Chief of Nai, Sidiqullah Tawhidi, said that it has been two years but there was no job regulation for media to ensure the rights and the privileges of journalist in the country.
He said that due to absence of the specific media regulation, journalists were threatened by job insecurity and their rights were denied by the employers.
“Currently, journalists do not have health insurance and transportation facilities. Steady salary, reimbursement, holidays and job security are the major demands of the media-persons,” he said.
He said the Ministry of Justice failed to finalize the media job regulation in the past two years, adding the regulations was not sent to the Council of Ministers (CoM) for approval.
The sooner the justice ministry provides the media job regulation to the CoM is better as the regulation would address all outstanding challenges faced by the journalists.
“After approval of the regulation, contracts of the reporters will be reviewed by media owners. The employers will be bound to give all privileges and necessary facilities to reporters,” he said.
Nai asked the Ministry of Justice to pay attention towards journalists’ problems and send the drafted regulation for approval to the CoM, as early as possible.