Afghanistan Won't Let New York Times Reporter Leave The Country

Afghan officials have banned New York Times correspondent Matthew Rosenberg from leaving the country in response to his latest story about the government there.

The Times reported Tuesday that officials first "interrogated" Rosenberg, and then imposed the ban, after the reporter wrote about senior officials threatening to form an interim government in order to end the country's election stalemate.

A spokesperson for the Afghan attorney general's office confirmed the travel ban to the Times, saying that it is in effect "until this issue over this article is resolved." The spokesperson also said that Rosenberg, who works out of the newspaper's Kabul bureau, will be asked to reveal his sources.

The journalist is one of several who has been targeted by governments in the Middle East as of late. Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian has been detained in Iran for almost a month now, while three Al Jazeera journalists have been in prison in Egypt since December.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists called Afghanistan's actions "alarming."

"We call on Afghan authorities to lift all travel restrictions on Matthew Rosenberg immediately," the organization's deputy director Robert Mahoney said. "Denying journalists freedom of movement is nothing more than a form of intimidation at a time when Afghanistan's democracy is most in need of independent political reporting."