Last Paper Standing

Zaki is in Kabul running an indie newspaper called The Etilaatroz. The Taliban are approaching the city, and the entire newsroom is on edge. But the question in Zaki’s mind is, “How do we save the paper?” Plus, a story from a journalist who decides what belongs in her bag. Last Paper Standing This story contains graphic imagery, sensitive listeners please be advised. Thank you to Zaki Daryabi for sharing your story with Snap! Extra thanks to Luft Ali Sultani and the entire team at Etilaatroz. If you want to learn more about Etilaatroz and their journey to cover the news, visit their website https://etrfoundation.org/ or watch a documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=tJNsdZieUlUJe5C9&v=aRKnLl2iMCk&feature=youtu.be&themeRefresh=1 about their days in Kabul on Youtube for free. Produced by Shaina Shealy, edited by Nancy Lopez, original score by Renzo Gorrio. Lost Baggage Fatima decides what belongs in her bag. Thank you Fatima for sharing your story! You can see her reporting from Afghanistan on topics like women’s rights and education in The New York Times. Season 17 - Episode 14 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 1:53Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so it sounds crazy. But my first real job was to watch TV. For real. At a bustling newsroom. The Grand Rapids Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'd watch the nightly news at 6:00 and 11:00. Make sure that the TV people thought it was important. We'd have a story on the front page the next morning. I loved that newsroom. Dozens of reporters, editors, photographers, ad folk, running around with the coffee, the sweat, the raised voices on deadline, holding the powerful accountable, keeping the public informed. It was wonderful. Felt like something out of the movies.

• 2:36Glynn Washington?

  And that, that was not long ago. First, they laid off half the staff. Then half of that staff. And again, and again, the mismanagement, the malfeasance, greed shipped the production of our Michigan paper to Cleveland, Ohio. Gutting it, stripping it. Past the studs, and I think about the skeleton crew that labors even now, struggling to keep up the good fight. Often just because they believe that a community, their community deserves its own newspaper.

• 3:18Glynn Washington?

  It seems like these days, every paper, every reporter, laboring to produce the first draft of truth against all the odds is a special kind of miracle. And today, we have a story for you. A little further afield than Grand Rapids, Michigan. Snap Judgment proudly presents Last Paper Standing. My name is Lynn Washington, and I type at 120 words a minute when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 4:10Glynn Washington?

  Snap Nation, when there is violence in the streets, when the old system's out and the new system's in, do you just pour yourself a cup of coffee, go to the office, try to keep your head down? Or do you rush in secret to put your escape plan in motion? And if your reality has been anything like mine lately, I know these are questions that might feel a bit close to home.

• 4:37Glynn Washington?

  But the next story, it actually takes us far away.

• 4:42Glynn Washington?

  Kabul, Afghanistan. And because this really happened, our story does contain some graphic scenes. Please do take care. It is 2021, and Zaki Daryabi is wondering what to do next.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  There was a lot of questions.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Zaki was the editor in chief of an influential independent newspaper called Echolat Rose. And one August morning, he stepped out of his apartment and made his way towards his office.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  There was a lot of people, unbelievable, abnormal. Women, children, kids, people from the government, people from the village. I was like trying to find a space for walking. Like you have to move like this. What's the word, zigzag maybe? Yeah, zigzag and find a little space, then move here and then right and then leave and then sleep.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  Everyone around Zaki seemed to be carrying bundles of papers.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Their dock means like the request for the passport. Some people had a kind of plastic bag and some had their hand without any bag.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  In 2021, as the US was withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, Taliban fighters were advancing across the country.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  Zaki wondered, would they really be able to retake control of the entire country?

• 6:15Speaker 03

  And if so, would they have the power to change everything?

• 6:21Speaker 03

  All Zaki really knew at this point was that he was now surrounded by people who had come to Kabul from all over the country to flee.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  It was a kind of sign for me that, oh, the collapse of Kabul is very, very near.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  There was thousands of people. So when you were looking on that faces, as a journalist who tried to build the new Afghanistan to be part of the future, I was seeing the hopelessness of people and then the pain. So I felt like a kind of ashamed, like, oh my God, why this happened to our country?

• 7:04Speaker 03

  As Zaki zigzagged his way toward the office, a building called House Number 30, he could see up to the balcony where he and his coworkers had pulled lots of all-nighters, working.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  Sometimes we were staying for 2:00 in the morning. We were looking at the moon from this balcony.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  He could see his staff speaking with one another, smoking cigarettes. He needed to gather his thoughts to figure out what he'd say to them in this moment that felt just so uncertain.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Before he opened the gate to House Number 30, he stopped, literally to smell the flowers climbing up the wall.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Yellow, purple, red, green, white. I just looked to them and just played with them, probably five minutes, to make sure that everyone somehow, when they may see me, they have to take some positive thing. Oh, he's very relaxed, know what is about the situation.

• 8:05Speaker 03

  Zaki took a deep breath.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  I think a kind of resist started inside of me. While a lot of people are trying to go and to leave the country with any cost, with any cost, in any situation, I was thinking like, let's continue as much as we can. Let's persist.

• 8:32Speaker 02

  I want to make sure like I'm clear enough with my colleagues and enough honest with them to talk about what's coming and what's our options and what's our fear. And I was just thinking, OK, I have a responsibility. Then went to the office to take a coffee.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  And then, one of the Etlat Rose cameramen asked Zaki if he could record his speech.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Before that, I was OK. I'm OK, I'm OK, I'm OK. And then when you are giving a promise and it's recorded, you don't know what's happening next month. Actually, I felt a lot of pressure on me and I was of, what should I tell?

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Zaki couldn't really say no. He walked out onto the balcony, where his staff had already gathered.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Their eyes, their faces, their lines, their glasses was putting a lot of pressure on me. But I knew that, OK, we don't have time. I have to do it.

• 9:42Speaker 03

  This is the recording of his speech that day.

• 9:49Speaker 02

  I told them three things. One, if somebody want to leave the job and not be journalist, it's your right.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  If you want to go to save your family, it's your right.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Zaki knew the risks of being a journalist under the Taliban.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  I will do anything and I can to protect you, to move you from this country. Two, if you want to stay and work with the Latros, we will go together. Three, my personal priority is to save the Latros, even if the government is going to collapse. Doesn't matter how long it takes, what's happening. I will stay for this organization.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  It's my promise and it's my priority. This was somehow very, very clear on my mind.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  The one thing Zaki was certain about: he would stay and fight for this newspaper.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  I have to stay on that word and then I have to stay for that promise. Leaving the country is not the only thing that we can do. Let's stay and fight for Itlaatros and let's fight for this organization.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  And why were you so adamant about saving it?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  I have no other option because this is kind of my first child as a dad, as a father.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Zaki actually had real children: eight-year-old twins and a two-year-old. But...

• 11:38Speaker 02

  I was telling some friends that I have four kids, the first is Itlaatros. So when you bowl something, you have to grow up it. You have to save it, you have to help it, you have to fight for it.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  When I ended the speech, I felt a kind of confusion among the colleagues. They were kind of looking to each other and then they were not certain what they should tell, how they should react on my speech. Kind of uncertainty, fear, hope, somehow all together.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  While Zaki was terrified of the unknowns...

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Still, there was something very, very small in my mind that maybe, maybe the Taliban is not going to do anything risky. Maybe, maybe you have the chance to continue, so why are you losing this?

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Some Taliban leaders were giving interviews to international journalists about how this time around, they'd allow free press and women's education.

• 12:50Speaker 04

  Mujahid said talks are ongoing for an inclusive political system and promised all Afghans' rights will be respected.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  A lot of Zaki's journalists didn't buy it. They had memories of the last time the Taliban was in power. Most were desperate to flee.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  So Zaki divided his staff into teams, one to help those who wanted to leave, and another team to continue to cover the news. Zaki made dozens of calls that day, trying to figure out how to help his colleagues. If he found flights that were leaving the country, he booked them immediately. He had only one ask in return.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  I asked him, every single colleague, this is the only wish and the last ask that I have from you. Every single person who is moving should take a six-month archive with you. Doesn't matter where you're going. I felt somehow that they are not going to say no to this request.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Six months of newspapers is nearly half of everything they were allowed to take on the plane.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  The six-month archive is heavy while you have a very small space. And I know that it was heart-wrenching, but I was thinking like the archive that we made of like around 10 years of Afghanistan history. It's really, really important.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Zaki and his reporters zipped stacks of newspapers into plastic bags. The first batch of papers they assembled included one of the team's early investigations about private banks in Afghanistan in the early 2010s.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  I think it was 20 pages. Every single detail of 863 or 73 million dollars that had been lost through that company was documented on a special edition.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  It was the story that put the paper on the map and exposed corruption across the country.

• 14:55Speaker 03

  Zaki moved on to the next batch of papers. Stories about the women's movement, new construction projects, a video that a government insider leaked to Zaki where high-ranking officials said they'd sidelined people with certain ethnic backgrounds from having positions in the government.

• 15:13Speaker 02

  I felt like, oh, you are going to change something inside the country.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  People who were watching said Zaki did change Afghanistan.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  A 2017 article in the New York Times cited Echelat Rose when it printed that "the growth of the free Afghan news media is one of the biggest achievements since toppling the Taliban in 2001." Zaki and his journalists had over 300,000 digital subscribers. They distributed around 5,000 papers a day.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  These physical papers were designed impeccably. Every evening, Zaki would bring the design to a guy named Zab.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  He had a very smiley face, and then he was always busy with the cutting.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Zab printed and cut the papers in a smelly print shop in Kabul.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  The paper smells like him, and the him is smelling like the paper.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  There was something about these tangible pieces of history Zaki felt was irreplaceable: physical proof of a changed Afghanistan. And now, his colleagues were folding bundles of this proof into their suitcases. Zaki told me that not one of his journalists hesitated when he made this ask. In fact, a lot of them also signed up their spouses to fill their bags with as many papers from the archive as they could.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  As Zaki and his team were preparing the archives and booking flights...

• 16:49Speaker 02

  There was a lot of rumors were going on. And then, in social media, we were seeing, like, the people were posting, "Oh, Taliban entered Kabul, Taliban entered Kabul."

• 17:00Speaker 03

  The Taliban entered Kabul on August 15th. Two days after Zaki made his speech to his colleagues on the House Number 30 balcony, Zaki's wife woke up before him that morning.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  And as he read the sleep from his eyes, she told him frantically that their close friends were leaving and that they'd found flights for his family, too.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  I told, okay, this is, this is good that they left. At least I'm happy for them, but it's not time that you can leave. And my, my, my wife told me, think about it again and deeply. She was kind of unhappy that I just said, okay, happy that they left and then I will go to office.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Did you think about it deeply or was it just an initial reaction?

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Oh, actually, I didn't know what to like, what is the best decision? But for me, it was actually took a very little moment that I decided that I have to go to office. If a lot of people already leaving the city, I have to go faster in the office and see my colleagues. My wife told me, please don't go today to the office. I said, I have to go.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  When Saki got to the office, his wife kept calling.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  And I didn't answer that, but I was busy. And then probably it was around noon that my wife entered my room in my office with change of dress.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  She had changed her clothes. Saki almost couldn't recognize her.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  They said, look, oh my God, what are you, what are you, what do you wear?

• 18:50Speaker 03

  She was wearing a scarf over her hair, a dress down to her ankles.

• 18:54Speaker 02

  It was kind of lovely and also I was laughing at that. Oh, this is a kind of symbol of fear that is coming. She told me, you don't know, all the women are disappeared from the streets. And then she was like stressful, was walking and not sitting. What we, what we call breathing fastly and then told me, I think Taliban, Taliban is in the city.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  What you are looking at right now is Taliban fighters inside the presidential powers, placing their guns on the desks, sitting behind the desk of, we assume that is the desk of the Afghani president.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Zaki looked around him and realized his wife wasn't the only one who had changed her clothes. Nearly everyone in the office that day seemed to be in this sort of different traditional dress. And then, his colleagues started going home to be with their families.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  Half of the colleagues disappeared from the office. They left, actually.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  But Zaki had made a promise. He stayed and monitored the news, updating readers online about the Taliban takeover.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  I was interviewing with the people and then answering the calls.

• 20:30Speaker 06

  All of the US diplomats that were at that embassy have now left. They have evacuated.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  He watched these videos of thousands of people scrambling at the airport to leave the country, including government employees.

• 20:44Speaker 07

  It could have been a stampede, but it's so chaotic there. The details are only dripping out as the day unfolds.

• 20:52Speaker 08

  Ali, we have watched that video.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  The vice president of the country, the national security advisor, one of the top ministers and many of the ministers are staying and sitting in the land, waiting for some flights.

• 21:07Speaker 07

  There are scenes of panic and pandemonium at Kabul Airport today. Desperate people pour onto the runway, trying to flee the country in what can only be described as a chaotic.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  As the sun faded on August 15th, the Taliban was officially in charge of Kabul. Most people had left the office to be with their families. So Zaki made his way home.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  There was nobody in the street. There was nobody in the streets. You were thinking like this city is empty of human.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  Empty of human. There was thousands of buildings and I was feeling like nobody is living here. So when I arrived in front of the house, I felt in a moment between the past and future.

• 22:01Glynn Washington?

  When we return, with the Taliban back in charge, will Zaki still be able to save his newspaper? Stay tuned.

• 22:19Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the last paper standing episode. As a reminder, this story does contain some graphic scenes, so please do take care. When last we left, Zaki had just learned that the Taliban had officially taken control of Kabul.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  It was like he was in this liminal space. He knew things were about to be really different, but he didn't know what the next day would bring.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  I entered the house and then I saw like the fire.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  Did your kids know what was going on?

• 23:02Speaker 03

  At this point in our interview, Zaki couldn't really talk anymore.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  He grabbed a tissue from his desk and excused himself.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Excuse me.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  And then he came back. Anytime if you want.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  Okay. Okay, so when I arrived, I entered in the house, saw my kids, and they were afraid. And my father decided to send my brother to my house. And he was in the army, and he had a kind of small gun. Go and be with Zaki tonight.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  With his brother acting as his family security, Zaki's parents and in-laws begged him to leave the country. It wasn't just that he was a journalist. He was also part of an ethnic minority. Human rights advocates in Australia had made a list of seven people in Afghanistan who they said should leave the country immediately.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  And you're among them. Please, please leave.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  But he was still going into work for Etchelat Rose. And one day while he was at his computer, Zaki heard gunshots.

• 24:22Speaker 03

  This is footage from one of his journalists. He's shouting to Zaki that the Taliban is nearby, patrolling the streets, probably five minutes away from House Number 30.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  I told the colleagues, "It's time that you have to go to your houses. If you have wives, fathers, or mothers, you have to take care of them. But if you want to stay, then you can stay here."

• 24:46Speaker 03

  It was around that time that an American familiar with Zaki's work reached out. There weren't many flights leaving Kabul anymore, but this friend pulled a bunch of strings to get Zaki and his family spots on a flight to the US.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Zaki's colleagues begged him to go.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  I was seeing my kids, my twins, my little boy, and my wife. And then the pressure that's coming from my father and mother, they were asking me, "Please leave, please leave."

• 25:16Speaker 03

  It was time. His friends made sure he knew the plan.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Hey, Zaki, tomorrow at 4:00 in the morning, somebody is going to come and pick up you from in front of your house. And you have to come to this.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  I told, "Okay."

• 25:37Speaker 02

  And my wife was collecting the stuff that we need to take it.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Foods, snacks, that probably will stay more in the airport.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Zaki invited people close to him over to his house for a goodbye dinner. After they left, Zaki got into his bed. He closed his eyes, but he couldn't sleep. He stared at the ceiling until he decided to just turn his phone off, to be unreachable to the driver who was coming to pick him up.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Once again, he decided to stay.

• 26:17Speaker 02

  My mind have changed.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  And what changed?

• 26:20Speaker 02

  I felt actually if I leave my colleague in this situation and go to this flight, I felt that, Zaki, this is not you. Even if you die here, it's not the way to leave your country with this situation. You cannot go while your colleague is here. They need me, then I don't know what happened after that.

• 26:45Speaker 03

  Your wife, did you tell her you were turning off your phone?

• 26:49Speaker 02

  No, I didn't tell.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  You just let her sleep?

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Yes. And then they woke up and told me what happened. And I told them, like, I received a message around 1:30 a.m. That flight had been canceled. Then we woke up, I cannot touch the screen because it's coming just. You know, the screen is coming, going like, like, I don't know how to tell it.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  Zaki had almost 100 missed calls. His one American friend called him over 20 times on Signal and about the same on WhatsApp.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  She was very, very angry with me that you are not a polite person anymore. You waste my time, you waste my connection. And then I was feeling, oh, now I can go back to the office that I laugh. I can have my coffee and I can see my colleagues with confidence. If I was leaving, I was feeling ugly somehow. That feeling was very beautiful, that I was okay. You made a good decision. You made a good decision.

• 28:04Speaker 03

  Zaki kept going into Etchelot Rose to work alongside his journalists who didn't have passports, couldn't leave if they tried. His skeleton crew wasn't printing papers anymore. It was too dangerous to hand them out on the street. But they kept publishing daily news online. At this point, Taliban spokesmen were giving interviews, saying that this time around, they actually were supportive of free press. They told leaders of other countries that things were going to be different.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  They have been interviewed by New York Times, CNN, all the media around the world. And they showed that we accept independent media.

• 28:46Speaker 03

  And then, on September 8th, less than a month from when Zaki gave that speech on the balcony, a few of his journalists went to cover a demonstration in support of women's freedom.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  That was very close to our office, like maybe 10 to 15 minutes walks.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Here's some of the footage they recorded. It's just a short clip, though, because less than an hour after they left House Number 30, Zaki got this message that some of the journalists from Echelon Rose had been detained by the Taliban.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  I understand that something happened very bad. He couldn't talk, like, actually.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Zaki picked up the phone and called the Taliban's media department to ask for an explanation and an apology. The person he spoke with warned Zaki not to speak with the international press about the incident.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  A lot of media who exist from the international media just called me that we want to come. I told them that I will wait until 5 PM or that I didn't hear back from the Taliban, what they will do with these persons who tortured them and detained them. Then I will open the door for the media.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  And finally,

• 30:01Speaker 03

  two of the journalists limped into the office, held up by their colleagues. One of the men hobbling into the office, he had this bandage across his cheek. The other held his abdomen and sort of collapsed into a chair. When another journalist walks into the room to see them, she broke down in tears.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  That they couldn't walk. And they tortured them for several hours and then put ice water and they just were not aware somehow because of the pain, the things that happened.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  The journalist said they were beaten with batons, and electrical cables, and whips for hours before they passed out.

• 30:53Speaker 02

  So I think that was a very, very sad day for me, for my colleagues, for...

• 31:02Speaker 02

  This too especially.

• 31:04Speaker 03

  Zaki knew what he had to do. He called his contact over at the Washington Post. And soon journalists from all over the world were calling. And then someone from the Taliban called.

• 31:17Speaker 02

  And he was telling me, you get, you make a mistake. You make a mistake that you talk with the media, open your mouth. And that from now, this is the Taliban. We will say what you will do, what you planned. Maybe three days later, I received a call from Mr. Interview First.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  But he just called your cellphone?

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Yes, they called my cellphone that you have to come to our office.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  The person from the Taliban told Zaki to come to their headquarters. One of Zaki's reporters actually traced the phone number of the person who had called Zaki.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  And he told me, my information shows it's a prison. It's not media important.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  The number had been traced to the GDI, the Taliban's General Directorate of Intelligence. Zaki's colleagues told him this was a trap.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Many other people told me, don't go. Please don't go. Please don't go, this is prison.

• 32:15Speaker 03

  By this point, Zaki was pretty good at ignoring phone calls. But this person from the Taliban kept calling.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  On Saturday, they called me back. Okay, son, we are waiting for you tomorrow. I was fully sure that they want to arrest me.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  Being terrified?

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yes, I was worried when they was very like serious about this demons. The next day then he come me, why you didn't come? This is, you are playing with us? I told, I'm sorry, I got busy. And then the guy got somehow angry and told, this is the last time that you are asking you to come. And I told, okay, I will try to come tomorrow.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  But he basically went into hiding, sleeping at different friends' houses every night. The guy from the Taliban kept calling and calling and calling multiple times a day.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Every single call that was coming from the same number was a big pressure. It just loaded pressure, the dread and the fear inside of me.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  And he saw that his colleagues in the office?

• 33:23Speaker 02

  A lot of them just were only coming to pass the time. So they wished, "Please, please leave. You can help us from outside. It's time, if you can find a way to go, please go."

• 33:37Speaker 02

  And then I decided to... There's no time.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  You have to find a chance and get out. And this was actually the demons of the colleagues because they saw that movements that they are calling me. I feel like, oh, the promise that I made for my colleagues. Now I can't do it. I can't do it. And I was feeling somehow bad for that. But I need to like face the reality as well.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Saki had burned some bridges when he decided not to take those earlier flights. But he still had connections all across the world. And when he decided it was time to leave, he called someone in the US who helped him find seats on a flight for his entire family.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  On October 3rd, seven weeks from the day he'd given his speech, he went to the office one last time. It was 6:00 AM when he got there and the building was empty.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Just was looking to every single part of the office. Was looking to the chairs that were putting on the yard that are going to be moved. I just looked to the table tennis memories that I had, to the coffee machine. I still, I still feel the smell of that coffee machine, the sound of that, to the balconies, to every single room who were sitting over there, to the chairs of my friends, my colleagues. I just went to every single person's desk and watched that and then

• 35:16Speaker 02

  moved from here, said goodbye to my cars, which was two.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  And then he got into a car with his wife and their kids.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  As they made their way towards the airport, Zaki looked out the window. He saw a girl sitting under a tree in the median. Their eyes met, and she called out to him.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  "Koko khairas pram khud bharin." It means, "Uncle, please take me with you." And I just sent back as much I could see her. Then she just disappeared. It actually broke my heart, that voice. I still can hear that. I still can hear that voice. We just got in the airplane, and the door closed. Then the airplane moved. Still, the only thing that I was thinking is very deeply is what about that girl?

• 36:22Speaker 02

  I mean, for hours, that sound was in my mind. It just was repeating on me. That sound was like demons of millions of people. Somehow, that sound, that demons destroyed me.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Okay, so here I am in downtown Silver Spring, on my way to meet Zaki at his office. On my right, there's a brewery and an urgent care. On my left, there's a little... From here in Maryland, Zaki is working with dozens of anonymous journalists in Afghanistan to get the news out. Hi. One of their last stories was about a list of books the Taliban had recently banned. These stories are reported in secret in Afghanistan, while Zaki and his colleagues edit from the ninth floor of an office building in downtown Silver Spring.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Like that, but you see a lot of buildings here. Cars, and then always the fire station.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  The office walls are gray, mostly blank. One of the journalists decorated their desk space with postcards from home. And in Zaki's office, there's this big storage closet.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  Zaki opens it. The closet is full of Echolat Rose newspapers.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Bundles tied together with string, covered in plastic wrap. Some of the papers Zaki's journalists towed out of Afghanistan never made it to Zaki. Months and months of archives were lost in a hotel storage room in Albania, where the journalists were waiting to find out where they'd be more permanently placed.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  But Zaki got most of the papers back in his hands about three years later, at a retreat he recently held at an Airbnb in Pennsylvania. Nearly 30 of his journalists came from all over: Illinois, New York, Washington State. The papers are stacked to the ceiling.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  The only thing I took from Afghanistan, for me, is this.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  Zaki came to the US with no major personal belongings, just newspapers.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  How many months did you take?

• 38:40Speaker 02

  With myself? I think we were taking 18 months. 18 months, yes. It's a part of the history of Afghanistan for around one decade.

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Zaki takes a bundle of papers and unwraps it from the plastic. And when he unfolds the paper, he holds it close to his face,

• 39:04Speaker 03

  and he breathes in the smell.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  The paper gave me

• 39:10Speaker 02

  a personal history of my life as well with the Sosan organization.

• 39:15Speaker 02

  So for me, it gives me a lot of memories, good memories, sad memories in that. I feel like it's a kind of legacy that I have.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  In 2023, the Taliban announced that working with Echolat Rose is a crime. One of Zaki's colleagues in Afghanistan was recently detained and issued a sentence of two years in prison.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  He is the only journalist like three days ago moved from Puljarqi prison to Baghram prison. This happened during this week and I don't know why, but it's it shows like how they seriously monitoring Etlat Rose and then how they are trying to stop us.

• 40:03Speaker 03

  Do you wish that you were there?

• 40:04Speaker 02

  I wish, yeah. Go back and take an officer there and then to see House Number 30 Kabul again.

• 40:24Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, thank you, thank you to Zaki Rayabi for sharing your story with the Snap. Extra thanks as well to Luft Ali Sultani and the entire team at Etlat Rose. If you want to learn more about Etlat Rose and their journey to cover the news and watch a documentary about their days in Kabul for free on YouTube, it's called House Number 30. We'll have a link on our website, snapjudgment.org. The original score for this piece was by Renzo Goryo. It was edited by Nancy Lopez and was produced by Shayna Shili.

• 41:01Glynn Washington?

  After the break, we stay in Kabul where another journalist named Fatima has a set of her own decisions to make. Stay tuned.

• 41:20Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap, the last paper standing episode. We're going to stay in Kabul. Snap producer Shayna Shili spoke to reporter Fatima Faze about how she said goodbye to everything she knew.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Fatima had been reporting, trying to figure out who she could talk to for an accurate analysis of what was going on with the Taliban. When suddenly, her boss informed her of a very different plan of action.

• 41:47Speaker 09

  New York Times was arranging a plane to pick up everybody and then go to Ukraine. And we were supposed to leave that day. One of my colleagues said that we had to just grab a backpack and wait for their signal to go to the airport.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  Fatima got back to her apartment around 1:00 P.M.

• 42:08Speaker 09

  I was standing in my living room and I was hearing a lot of gunshots. And then I was shivering and I felt the chill in my bones.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  She had actually interviewed a Taliban fighter once. He was in prison.

• 42:21Speaker 09

  And I asked him, "What will you do if there is peace in the country? What is one thing that you want to do?" And he said, "I want to come and find you and kill you, you whore." Today, we were spies and then we had betrayed the country. We had betrayed the religion. Although I was never part of the U.S. military, but today, everything is the same.

• 42:43Speaker 03

  She needed to pack quickly.

• 42:46Speaker 09

  And I was just looking at my plans and I was looking at my books. And I put my entire closet on the floor. And I was just going through everything, shuffling what to pick and what to leave. And I went through stuff dozens of times. And then I was going crazy. A few hours, probably, from 1:00 to 3:00, I was just trying to pack things and try to choose. And it was so hard for me. Sometimes I feel bad for me in that moment. And I'm like, I was so lonely. I felt like the entire the entire world was crashing down. And I was standing there and I was trying to

• 43:31Speaker 09

  I was trying to put my entire life, my 20-something years in a backpack. And then finally, one of my friends, she called me and I said, "I am about to pack, but I don't know what to do." So she sat on the phone with me and she was like, "Just gather a few things that reminds you of home." With her help, I just put a few things in a jam bag.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  And can you tell me how you decided what to put in the gym bag?

• 44:05Speaker 09

  It was hard to choose, but I was like, okay, I knew that I want to get a pair of earrings from Bamiyan. It was about 200 or 300 years old and it was really old. It was silver and that was really valuable. And there were like jewelries from Bamiyan. There were jewelries from Kandahar and then some of my mom's jewelries. They had given it to me or some of them that I took just because I really liked it.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  She took a necklace and earring set that her father had bought her mother as a wedding gift. And this one ring that had belonged to her grandmother.

• 44:35Speaker 09

  And it was just like a really basic silver ring. It was big for me, but I just wanted to hold on to that. And there was a bracelet. It's called Sabat Kori. It has like some lines to draw into it, some flowers. Again, it belongs to my own community. It was like, it was not just a piece of jewelry. It's part of the history of the Hazara community. And also it's the art, more importantly.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  She did bring a few special pieces of clothes. A custom tailored dress, a jacket with traditional Afghan embroidery and...

• 45:09Speaker 09

  I had a jam suit that I bought in India from HNM. And that was opposite. I'm like, I don't know what I was thinking about. And I was like, okay, maybe I need this.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  And what was the moment that you zipped the bag and said, this is done?

• 45:27Speaker 09

  When I called a taxi, I just zipped it and I even didn't take another look. I just zipped it and I just looked back and I looked at my plants. And I still think about those plants that died because nobody watered them.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  Fatima got to the airport with this gym bag full of precious items and her backpack with her work laptop.

• 45:48Speaker 09

  At this point, everybody was rushing toward the airport.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Fatima found some of her colleagues and about 200 other journalists from different American news organizations.

• 45:57Speaker 09

  There was a plane for us to go to Ukraine. And then everybody was trying to rush toward that. But only one colleague made to the plane and then it took off because people were just climbing the plane. And then they had to like for their own safety to close the doors and take off.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  As this big group of journalists waited for instructions on what to do next, they were being mobbed by people who had come to the airport without a plan or a destination. And so they moved to an empty parking lot with a fence around it.

• 46:30Speaker 09

  Everybody had their luggage on them. Like some really gigantic luggage despite being told that they could not bring anything. And then we were just sitting around this parking lot. Like every colleague was on the phone trying to talk to their sources. And people are also trying to open the gate and to get into the parking lot. And just, and hearing gunfire constantly. It reminds me of the American horror movies, like zombies.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  There was no food or water or bathroom. And Fatima was just on the phone calling anyone she could think of who might be able to help.

• 47:10Speaker 09

  And then probably around midnight, I realized that I don't have my, my gym bag on me anymore.

• 47:21Speaker 09

  And then it just, it felt like my, my soul just left my body.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  Did you try to go look for it?

• 47:30Speaker 09

  I could not. I could not risk everybody else's life to get out of that parking lot and go look for my bag. And there was no way that I could do it. It was, it's beyond, I don't know if I have the right word to describe the scene. It was, it was really bad. I was hanging there and I, I was trying to hold on to something, you know? We have a saying in Farsi that I am hanging between the, the sky and the, the ground and my feet are not touching the ground. It felt like the, the, the ground under my feet just disappeared.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Fatima and her colleagues spent the night in the parking lot until they were kicked out by men in uniform the next morning.

• 48:23Speaker 09

  We tried to walk to the, one of the gates. And then trying to hold on to each other so we don't lose each other. I don't think our brains were working. It's just like, we were just hoping that something, a miracle happened or something like that.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  This was the same day someone filmed a video of people falling off a plane as it took off from the runway.

• 48:42Speaker 09

  It was really apocalyptic. And at some point in this chaotic moment, two Taliban soldiers came with their AK-47 and then they started beating everybody. And that's the moment that the rest of the group left their luggage behind.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  So everyone left their luggage behind?

• 49:01Speaker 09

  Everybody. You could not, you could, you could just save your life and that was, that was it.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  The group scattered. Fatima hid out at a colleague's house for a few days. On August 20th, she made her way back to the airport. And finally, she got on a military plane to Qatar.

• 49:21Speaker 09

  And then we were in Doha for a few days. After that, we went to Mexico City and then the final destination was Texas.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Now, whenever Fatima's in a new place, she goes looking for jewelry.

• 49:32Speaker 09

  I'd go to jewelry shops and try to find something which is similar to those items that I have. I have lost, but it's kind of, it's impossible because like, who has the pair of earrings from a Hazara community in Bombay from 300 years ago? Or my mom's jewelry is her wedding gift from my dad. And it was, it was nothing very expensive, just silver. But once again, I, I lost it. And it leaves a very deep scar. I'm not sure even if it's scar. I feel it's like a wound because it, once in a while, it starts to hurt so much. I don't know, it's not just about those items or their values. It's just about like longing for something.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  A few weeks after Fatima settled into a motel room in Texas, she heard something clinking around in her backpack.

• 50:26Speaker 09

  And I opened my backpack and I was like, what is it? And that's the moment that I realized that, oh, I have a pair of earrings and also a ring that one of my best friends had given to me. The earrings, it's fake. It's not actual gold or silver, but it's just like a random metal that it was in my backpack. I was quite shocked. I was like, how?

• 50:50Speaker 03

  And do you still have those items? The ring and the earring?

• 50:53Speaker 09

  I do, yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Do you wear them?

• 50:55Speaker 09

  I try to not a lot because I don't want to lose it. But it's just always on my bedside table. Sometimes when I have something that I think is important, whether it's an interview or just going to an important event, I put that ring on and also those earrings. So there's just like trying to hold on to something.

• 51:31Glynn Washington?

  That was Fatima Fazey. Fatima's currently a fellow at Columbia Journalism School. Big thanks to Fatima for sharing her story with the Snap. You can see her reporting from Afghanistan on topics like women's rights and education in the New York Times.

• 51:52Glynn Washington?

  Now, if you missed even a moment, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. In fact, you may want to try a tiny plot. It's a five-part series where Shaina Shealy, the producer of today's story, follows the journey of a group of unhoused people trying to make their way. And you can listen to the entire award-winning series right now on any podcast platform, Snap Judgment.

• 52:18Glynn Washington?

  KQV in San Francisco sets the trends as the fashion capital of the Western world. Robots. Please note that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission on Team Snap. The union representatives, producers, artists, editors, and engineers, our members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO Local 51, Snap is brought to you. With a team that doesn't want any trouble. Except for the Uber producer, Mark "I Want All The Trouble" Ristich. And there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McMillan, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorrio, John Facio, Sheena

• 53:03Glynn Washington?

  Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge. And this is not the news. In fact, you could decide to stay and face the bad guys with the guns, but you could have a wife, and she could tell you that, "Now that ain't gonna happen." And you would still, still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.