KABUL, Afghanistan – Since a U.S.-led coalition removed the Taliban regime from power in 2001, Afghanistan has seen a surge in new publications, radio stations and TV channels. But journalists who ply their trade there may do so at their own peril.

Press freedom is still a precious commodity in Afghanistan. France-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked the country on the lower end of its recently published annual press freedom index. The country occupies position No. 130, surrounded by such nations as Rwanda, Colombia and the Palestine Authority. The freest press is to be found in Finland and Iceland, according to the report.

The Kabul Weekly, once touted as “Afghanistan’s paper of record,” is beset with financial woes after Editor Faheem Dashti saw government advertising withdrawn from its pages.

He blames his money troubles – and attempts to silence him – on his relentless criticism of President Hamid Karzai, whom he claims does too little about widespread corruption in his government.

“Yes, I have received threats in the past,” he said. “When that didn’t work, someone told me: ‘Listen, you have a wife, family, why don’t you just take a government position?’”

Unlike many other journalists, Dashti did not accept offers for a government job in exchange for his silence.

Illiteracy is high in Afghanistan, and poverty widespread - two factors that significantly limit the market for printed media. To top it off, even within this small market competition is fierce because every political group that is formed starts publishing its own newspaper, Dashti explains. Kabul alone has about 10 daily newspapers and about 400 weekly publications are registered with the Ministry of Culture.

Din Mohammad Mobarez “Rashedi” is the deputy minister of publications. I find him on the fourth floor of the Ministry building in the center of Kabul. Earlier, the inevitable armed guard had waved me through after taking a casual look at my press card – which expired eight years ago.

The recently appointed official is not pleased when I tell him his country ranks low on the RSF press freedom index.

“Ideals and reality are different things, and when you compare Afghanistan with countries like Finland or Iceland, we’re hopeless,” he says.

“But we should compare Afghanistan with itself. Five years ago you would be arrested or killed for criticizing the government. Today anyone is free to do so. Foreign media have offices now in Afghanistan while five years ago it was illegal to even listen to the BBC.

“And don’t forget, the press faces threats here that the government cannot control, unfortunately. I just came back from a meeting about disarming some local bands. I don’t control armed gangs that may attack journalists.”

The subject of press freedom and freedom of speech becomes touchy when religion, particularly Islam, enters the debate. Mobarez points out that there is a clear distinction between discussing issues such as government, security and reconstruction on one side and religion on the other. It is, for example, illegal to insult Islam, a law that is subject to broad interpretation by authorities and Muslim clerics alike.

“Religion is a different issue because it is a specific sensitivity in Afghanistan’s traditional society,” he said.

When asked if speech about religion will ever be completely free, Mobarez refers to the “armed groups” again and replies diplomatically: “We are not at that point. Personally I believe in freedom of speech and in journalism. But the enemies of journalists can be my potential enemies too.”

The story of Sohrab Kabuli illustrates the difficulty of discussing religion in the Afghan press. It is not his real name. Shortly after his country was liberated from the Taliban, he started the satirical magazine Cartoon. After several months, when it went out of business, he had received so many death threats that he changed his name and even went into hiding for some time.

“I published a satirical story about this Ayatollah Asef Mohseni, for example, an old cleric who married an 18-year-old girl, a student of his. I received calls telling me to start counting toward my death, or that the authorities were looking for me.”

He’s now blacklisted with the Ministry of Culture and cannot publish anything in Afghanistan: “A printer will ask for my license if I should try to publish something anyway, and may even warn the authorities if I try something like that.”

In 2004, Kabuli discovered the Internet and started two Web logs (blogs): Afghan Lord in English and Kabuli.org in Farsi. Both were soon widely read even though Internet access in Afghanistan is limited to the happy few.

“Afghanistan has no blogging community, so my Web logs soon became popular as a source of information for people who wanted to read news about Afghanistan from inside the country itself.”

Kabuli carries his laptop and a digital camera in a small backpack as he roams the streets of Kabul, stopping at hotels and restaurants where he can hook up to the Web. In 2005, his efforts netted him a Reporters Without Borders Freedom of Expression Blog Award, but even such international recognition did not stop the threats.

“I wrote about links between the minister of defense and Pakistan’s intelligence service ISI, and got phone calls and messages saying they were going to finish me off,” he related.

“Even my friends and family were threatened, and in some occasions I had no other choice than to take down articles from my Web site. Two friends once told me that they were going to say goodbye to me, because I was certainly going to die and they did not want to be near me anymore.

“There is press freedom in Afghanistan if you forget about certain things. If you live and work here, you need to forget about the torture of women, about the warlords, about the kidnappings. You can write that Islam is a problem if you accept death.”

At the heavily fortified headquarters of Afghanistan National TV, I spoke with Director Najib Roshan, who lived in Germany for 25 years before returning to Afghanistan to play his part in the rebuilding of his country.

“The three threats to press freedom in Afghanistan are government propaganda, the warlords, and the religious fanatics who are the tools of the warlords,” he said.

“Another problem is corrupted journalists. I just found out four days ago that one of our reporters receives $200 per month from the minister of health. So, every two days the face of this minister pops up in the news.

“Despite problems, we have more freedom in Afghanistan than in the neighboring countries,” Roshan adds.

Even though the government tells him what to broadcast, Roshan tries to work as independently as possible.

On the night following our interview, the Afghan TV news conveyed an example. The program started with several friendly pieces about President Karzai and government policy. But then, sandwiched between the innocent stories, a report was presented about a woman who committed suicide as a result of domestic abuse.

The body, said the report, showed signs of torture. The police have launched an investigation.

It’s not a story that will play well in a country where violence against women is routinely swept under the rug. But it is easy to forget that only five years ago such a story would have meant another death - that of the journalist reporting it.

This article was published earlier on NewsMax.