Afghan Officials Grill NYT Correspondent

Matthew Rosenberg (NYTimes)

The Afghan AG's office called in NYT correspondent Matthew Rosenberg for questioning Tuesday, and later order him  to leave the country, after the Times published a story about discussions among some officials of imposing an interim govt - effectively a soft coup.

State Dept spox Marie Harf said Tuesday, "We are deeply disturbed by the actions of the Afghan attorney general and by this travel ban that has allegedly been put into place, and urge the Afghan govt to respect fundamental freedoms of expression and expression of the press, and we'll continue to monitor it."

It was the fourth time this year that the Afghan govt has threatened or initiated legal action against the Times because of complaints by senior Afghan officials over articles it has written

A senior prosecutor asked Rosenberg to reveal his anonymous govt sources quoted in the piece, which he declined to do.  Originally Rosenberg was not allowed to leave the country until "this issue over this article is resolved." He also said they'd wanted his sources

Adela Raz, a deputy spox for President Hamid Karzai, said in a statement posted as a link from her Twitter account, "Since the beginning of the presidential election the NYT has sought to sow disunity among the Afghans by publishing several reports of this nature." She called the reports "baseless."