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TV anchor Khatereh Ahmadi wearing a face covering as she reads the news in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 22, 2022. © 2022 Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo

While corresponding with a local journalist in Afghanistan around a recent report I had authored, I received a shocking request: “Can we please have a video clip on your new report—not from you, but from a man from Human Rights Watch?”

I reread the message in anger. Although I was the report’s author as Human Rights Watch’s Afghanistan researcher, the outlet wanted a male colleague to speak in my place.…