Expert Narratives

Najiba Ayubi is a journalist and activist for human rights and freedom of the press. She is the Director of the Killid Group, a non-profit Afghan media network encompassing press, radio, and online outlets with a national reach. Ayubi left Afghanistan with her family when the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.

Ahmad Shah Behzad is a Member of Parliament from Herat province. He was forced to migrate to Iran during the war and stayed there until the fall of the Taliban. Upon his return to Afghanistan with his family, he started working as a journalist for Radio Azadi.

Roya Sadat was one of the first female filmmakers to emerge after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. She studied law and political science at Herat University but her real passion was in film.

Abdullah Ahmadi is a human rights activist. He is the Program Director of the Cooperation Centre for Afghanistan, a human rights and conflict resolution organization where he has worked for the past 10 years.

Shakila Ibrahimkhalil is an Afghan journalist. During the time of the Taliban, she was forced to withdraw from her journalism studies and get married. Four years later, she suffered the loss of her husband.

Dr Daud Shah Saba was the Governor of Herat from 2010 to 2013. He resigned in July 2013, citing rampant corruption and the failure of the central government to bring about promised reforms.

Khadija Ghaznawi was the only woman who presented as a candidate for the 2014 presidential elections. She was disqualified from running by the Independent Election Commission.

Mohieddin Mahdi is a well-known politician, and a Member of Parliament. He was a member of the Northern Alliance in the 1980s and later the Deputy Ambassador of Afghanistan to Tajikistan.

Maria Bashir is the Chief Prosecutor General of Herat province. She was the first woman to be appointed Chief Prosecutor in Afghanistan, and is the only woman serving as Chief Prosecutor in any of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Yassin Negah is the editor-in-chief of Porsesh [Question], a weekly magazine in Afghanistan, and the director of Writers Home, an association for young independent writers and poets.