Sayed Zafar Hashemi

Zafar Hashemi
File:Sayed Zafar Hashemi.jpg Zafar Hashemi at the Presidential Palace, Arg
Deputy spokesperson of the Government of Afghanistan
In office 27 May 2015 – 31 January 2017
President	Ashraf Ghani
Preceded by	Aimal Faizi
Personal details
Born	(1985-02-17) February 17, 1985 Afghanistan
Nationality	Afghanistan United States
Party	Independent
Alma mater	University of Maryland Johns Hopkins University

Zafar Hashemi (Persian: ظفر هاشمی; born February 17, 1985) is an Afghan-American who served as special advisor on Afghanistan for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). He now works as public relations officer at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he worked as the political counselor at the embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. He was also the deputy (and for nine months acting) spokesperson of the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani until January 2017.

Life and career

An ethnic Tajik, Hashemi fled Afghanistan as a child to Pakistan during the Taliban regime. He later resided in the U.S. to study, achieving a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Maryland and a master's degree in public administration at Johns Hopkins University. Before immigrating to the United States in 2007, Hashemi managed communication and public affairs of Afghanistan Stabilization Program (ASP) under the Interior Ministry, and prior to that he was a journalist and a radio presenter for Nawa 103.1 FM in 2007, and later at AWAZ. He later became a television presenter and journalist at Voice of America (VOA) in Washington DC.