Taliban Held 7 Foreign Reporters This Month

Japanese national Daigen Yanagida has been arrested for illegal entry into the country by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban in what has been the seventh similar case this month. RIA Novosti quoted the News daily as saying the Japanese reporter was caught in the bazaar of Asadabad, the capital of the Kunar province, on Tuesday, October 23, and was transported for interrogation to the counter-intelligence headquarters in the city of Jalalabad, the provincial capital of Nangarhar bordering on Pakistan. The newspaper wrote the journalist had published a book on Afghanistan earlier and supposedly collecting material for a follow-up by arrangement with a Japanese publisher. Briton Yvonne Ridley, a reporter for The Sunday Express of London, was arrested on September 28 after working her way into Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass. She was released 10 days later "over humanitarian considerations and given her gender," according to the Taliban. Her release happened to coincide with British Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to Pakistan before the launch of the ongoing US military campaign. The two Pakistanis who accompanied her still languish in jail in Kabul. Michel Peyrard, a war correspondent with Paris Match, was detained outside Jalalabad later, along with Pakistani reporters Irfan Qureishi and Mukharram Khan. Latest reports indicate the criminal investigation into their case has been completed and trial is set to begin in the Islamic Shariah court in the next few days.