The Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders condemned the Taliban on Wednesday for shutting down two news websites in Afghanistan and urged the group to stop censoring the media.  “The Taliban must restore full online access to Hasht-e Subh Daily and Zawia News,” said CPJ’s Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “More than ever, Afghans and the world need to know what is happening in Afghanistan. The Taliban must stop suppressing the media.” Meanwhile, the RSF said in a statement: “In addition to the Taliban’s continuous restriction of the media, the closure of the websites of Hasht-e-Subh (8am) and Zawia Media, marks the start of a new phase in the Taliban’s war on media freedom.” “They have used violence and regulations to restrict and censor the media, but for the first time they have gone so far as to directly violate media freedom by closing the websites of two Afghan newspapers,” the statement added. On Monday, the Taliban’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology shut down the websites of Hasht-e Subh Daily and Zawia News reportedly due to “false propaganda” against the Taliban. The Hasht-e Subh Daily and Zawia News sites are two prominent independent media outlets that have been operated by Afghan journalists reporting from exile since the Taliban took over the country in August 2021. The award-winning Hasht-e Subh Daily newspaper has operated in Afghanistan since 2007 and moved its operations entirely online after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. It has nearly 2.75 million combined followers on Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, Zawia News is part of Zawia Media, which, according to its website, describes itself as a “pioneer” of digital media in Afghanistan and covers “untold realities” about the country. According to Reporters Without Borders, Afghanistan ranks 156 out of 180 countries on the 2022 Press Freedom Index. In the first three months after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, 43 percent of Afghan media outlets disappeared. According to the RSF, although four new media outlets have been created since August 2021, Afghanistan has lost 219 of the 547 media outlets it used to have operating in the country.