KABUL, 7 June 2007 — Unidentified gunmen shot dead an Afghan woman journalist, the second such killing in less than a week, officials said yesterday. Zakia Zaki, who also served as headmistress of a school, ran a private radio station partially funded by a Western media group.
The 35-year-old married woman was killed at her house in Parwan province, north of the capital Kabul late on Tuesday. Zakia was threatened recently by some factional commanders in her area to shut down the station or face death, the head of Afghanistan’s Independent Journalist Association said.
“She believed in freedom of expression, that’s why she was killed,” Rahimullah Samander told Reuters. Authorities said an investigation had been launched. Zakia, the owner and the manager of Peace Radio in Parwan, was shot seven times by pistol and automatic rifle fire in front of her 8-year-old son inside her house in the town of Jabalussaraj, said provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Takwa.
Another female reporter, Shokiba Sanga Amaaj, was shot inside her house in Kabul on Friday by two male relatives, said Gen. Ali Shah Paktiawal, the Kabul police director of criminal investigations. Amaaj was a newsreader for private Shamshad TV. Gunmen shot her several times in the back, Paktiawal said. “Her father accused these two relatives for the murder,” he said.
Authorities say they have arrested some suspects in connection with Amaaj’s murder. She had also been ordered by unidentified people to stop her work.
