Daud Junbish is a

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

journalist. He is one of the few journalists in the world who has met former

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

chief

Mullah Omar Muhammad Umar Mujahid (196023 April 2013), commonly known as Mullah Omar or Muhammad Omar, was an Afghan militant leader and founder and the first leader of the Taliban from 1994 until his death in 2013. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the T ...

, and has interviewed him on multiple occasions. He is the author of ''What Is Really Happening in Afghanistan?'', ''24 Hours That Turned Afghanistan Around'', and ''Red Army in Afghanistan''.

Life and career

Junbish completed his PhD from

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in the area of journalism. Junbish joined BBC Moscow in 1994 as a reporter. He subsequently became a senior editor with

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations cove ...

for their Afghanistan service. Currently, he works with BBC's Afghanistan service as a producer. One of Junbish's most notable meetings was in 1996, when he met the then Taliban head,

. Over the next few years, Junbish interviewed Omar multiple times for BBC. In August 2015, the BBC program ''The Fifth Floor'' interviewed Junbish in a special feature, covering the range of interviews Junbish had held with Omar. Over his career with BBC, Junbish has written a number of books on Afghanistan, including ''What Is Really Happening in Afghanistan?'', ''24 Hours That Turned Afghanistan Around'', and ''Red Army in Afghanistan''. He has also written two textbooks for

Kabul University Kabul University (KU; ) is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, wh ...

's journalism faculty.

''Open Jirga''

Junbish is the presenter for the BBC program ''Open Jirga'', a show featuring a panel discussion amongst notable personalities combined with audience questions. The show is funded by the UK government's

Department for International Development The Department for International Development (DFID) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid ...

and is jointly produced by the Afghan service of BBC,

BBC Media Action BBC Media Action, formerly known as the BBC World Service Trust, is the BBC's international development charity, funded independently by external grants and voluntary contributions. The purpose of the organisation is to use media and communicati ...

, and

Radio Television Afghanistan National Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA; ''Da Afġānistān Millī Rādīo Televizion'', ''Rādīo Televizion-e Millī-ye Afġānistān'', branded as ملی (meaning ''national'')) is the public-broadcasting organization of Afghanistan, bas ...

. Junbish, who launched the show in 2012 as a weekly series, has invited and featured prominent personalities like Sulaiman Layeq and Mohammad Mohaqiq in the discussion panels. The issues taken up by Junbish in various episodes have been praised by various international media. BBC described the third edition of the show, hosted by Junbish, as including a "ground-breaking exchange". The Junbish-hosted series became so successful that

Hamid Karzai Hamid Karzai (born 24 December 1957) is an Afghan politician who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from 2002 to 2014, including as the first president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. He previously served a ...

, then the

President of Afghanistan The president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was constitutionally the head of state and head of government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces. Eligibility and selection process A ...

, sought an invitation to the show (Karzai was subsequently invited and appeared therein). Junbish's show is credited with influencing government and civil society action on various national and regional issues. ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

'' reported that over 2 to 3 million people were regular viewers of the show, a high figure for a nation with a population of around 30 million.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Junbish, Daud Living people BBC newsreaders and journalists British male writers Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Nationality missing British non-fiction writers British textbook writers Moscow State University alumni Afghan journalists Afghan emigrants to the United Kingdom Male non-fiction writers