UC Berkeley’s South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) and Journalists Association for Middle East and North Africa (JAMENA) invite you to a panel discussion on Afghanistan with journalists Shabnam Dawran and Anand Gopal, moderated by Dean Geeta Anand and Harris Mojadedi.

Join us to discuss the United States’ 20-year invasion, press coverage over the years, and the future of journalism in Afghanistan.

Livestream the event on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FhKgL9bzKZg
RSVP here (and submit a question in advance)

Shabnam Dawran is a broadcast journalist from Afghanistan, and has worked for Afghanistan National TV, TOLO News, RTA (Radio Television Afghanistan) and Zhwandoon TV. When the Taliban took over in August 2021, she was working as a TV anchor and was barred from going to work even as her male colleagues were not stopped. She frequently posts content highlighting the plight of children and women in Afghanistan and fears for her family there. As a young journalist, she feels passionately about women being allowed to work and their safety. After facing security threats, she has been a refugee in Scotland since August, and she aims to continue working as a journalist in the UK.

Anand Gopal is a journalist covering Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, and other international hotspots. He has served as an Afghanistan correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor, and has reported on the Middle East and  South Asia for Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic. He is the author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travails of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction.