The new draft media law is being strongly criticized since it was distributed through a government outlet by the Ministry of Information and Culture to assess media and civil society reactions. Media advocacy group Nai says the proposals recommended by private and independent media to be included have been ignored in the 58-article draft law circulated. Independent media outlets and journalist associations believe fundamental changes are needed to be incorporated into the draft law.

New articles introduced in the draft are attempts to impose strict control over independent media, through the media high council to be represented by the Information and Culture Ministry. Media persons had proposed the council should be represented by independent body.

Through the state control of The Media Violation Assessments Commission and the Media High Council, private and independent media will be subject to easy black-mailing whenever some concerned stakeholder wanted to pressurize on matters of editorial independence and government scrutiny. Nai says involvement of officials from the Information and Cultural Ministry will obviously compromise the independence of media outlets.

Already the process has gone through a long unnecessary course with intentional delay. Previously there was contention on the issue of Ministry control over the state-owned media outlets. MPs have previously accused intentional delay in the drafting of the proposed law.

Some elements want to bring into effect a mechanism of tight control over one of the important pillars of state in modern democratic era—independent media. With introduction of the conditions and control by the Ministry, Media Commission and High Council could be a pressure card against any private independent media outlet that will not be liked by certain elements.

With the strong criticism and discussion of the new draft media law that attempts to undermine independence of private media outlets through the media oversight bodies controlled by the Government, an important other aspect of freedom of press has been altogether out of debate.

Afghanistan is in the list of countries where there is no legislation about access to information. Freedom of information is one of the important keys of democracy and its success. Access to information held by state is a legal right-to-know in most real democratic countries. Afghanistan being a democratic state should have the legislation, but unfortunately we even had not any discussion about it in the parliament.

Among our neighbors, only Pakistan has its Freedom of Information Ordinance 2002. Iran and none of our Central Asian neighbors have any such legislation. We claim to be a democracy, yet fall behind in the basic requirements of it.

For a new-born democracy like Afghanistan to flourish, the Government should make sure to bring a freedom of information act and debate about it in the parliament. Though we have relative media freedom compared to our Central Asian neighbors, or even Pakistan in several aspects, absence of legislation on access to information is a hurdle for the booming Afghan media. Rise of media outlets is one of the significant accomplishments credited to administration of President Karzai.

It's not that the question about an access to information act has never been raised or talked about, but the fact is that certain ruling quarters have tried to keep legislation from coming into the parliament.

One of the challenges for journalists in Afghanistan is lack of such legislation, while Government officials are usually uncooperative and not willing to share any information on request.

While making any report, journalists need accurate information from government offices, but the general behavior in this regard is very unhelpful. Even in absence of legislation, it's the ethical responsibility of the officials to provide accurate information to the masses through media.