Registration details to follow.

This is a in-person lunch event at the Union Club in downtown Victoria.

In the wake of years of conflict, and since the takeover by the Taliban in August last year, Afghanistan has been plunged into a deep economic, social, humanitarian and human rights crisis. In particular, secondary school girls have been banned from attending school by the Taliban, a strict hijab rule has been instituted for women and women are no longer able to take part in public and political life. Almost all households face a high level of food insecurity and access to basic services, including healthcare, is diminishing. To discuss what happened last year, and is happening in Afghanistan today, we are pleased to welcome to Victoria, Lotfullah Najafizada.

Lotfullah is an award-winning journalist from Afghanistan and the former Director of TOLO news TV, Afghanistan’s top news channel, which he led for over a decade until the fall of Kabul last August. While with TOLO news TV, he conducted many high-profile interviews with global leaders, including British Prime Minister David Cameron, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, NATO Secretaries General Jen Stoltenberg and Andres Fogh Rasmussen, US NSA Gen HR McMaster and Senator John McCain. He also hosted Afghanistan’s only presidential elections debate in 2019. On World Press Freedom Day 2016, Paris-based Reporters without Borders awarded him with the prestigious medal of Press Freedom Hero for his fight for free press in Afghanistan. In 2016, TIME Magazine profiled him as a Next Generation Global Leader and in 2017 Forbes magazine selected him among the 30 under 30 Asia influencers in media. He was the only Afghan journalist who attended two rounds of civil society talks with the Taliban in Doha (2019) and in Oslo (2022).