Afghanistan’s lower house of parliament, or Wolesi Jirga, has given the country’s Information and Culture Minister a one-month deadline to ban “anti-Islamic” television broadcasts.

According to Afghanistan’s TOLO News, Minister Sayed Makhdoom Raheen said at a legislative session on Saturday, June 15 that, “A number of media organizations and journalists are insulting the country’s respected personalities and their broadcasting is un-Islamic. However, we are trying to strengthen the ‘freedom of speech’ in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, media organisations and journalists are misusing this freedom.”

Parliamentary member, Abdul Satar Khawasi, was one of the more extreme proponents of the initiative, announcing a ‘Fatwa of Jihad’ against the offending media. Other parliamentarians objected and called the fatwa illegal, as was reported by TOLO News. This may not mean, however, that they support full freedom of expression.

Many Afghans expressed surprise and condemnation of the United States’ inability to legally silence people like Pastor Terry Jones whose public burning of a Quran in March 2011 resulted in deadly riots in Afghanistan.

“Some people misinterpret the term of freedom of expression and think that they are free to insult or accuse anyone of anything and broadcast anything they want,” a representative from Afghanistan’s Herat province said during Saturday’s meeting, as reported by Pajhwok Afghan News. Still some members of Parliament argued that independent Afghan media have helped to inform and reform the country.

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