Abdul Karim Khoram (Pashto: عبدالکریم خرم) (born 1963) is the current Minister of Culture, Information, Tourism and Youth Affairs of Afghanistan in the cabinet of Hamid Karzai.
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Abdul Karim Khoram was born in Kabul Province in 1963 to a Pashtun family. He completed his primary and secondary education in Kabul City and was then admitted to Polytechnical University of Kabul in 1982. However, he was imprisoned for three years by the communist regime because of his involvement in anti-communist activities. Therefor, he was not able to complete his higher educations at the Polytechnical University of Kabul. In order to complete his higher education, Khoram left for Paris, France in 1991, where he received a masters degree in International law and Diplomacy.[1] While he was still in Paris, Khoram received a second masters degree in Export Law. Afterwards, he served as a professor and expert on Eastern Languages at several French Universities for some time.[2]
Abdul Karim Khoram is an active member of Gulbudin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami.[3] He was appointed as a "Minister of Culture, Information, Tourism and Youth Affairs" in May 2006.
Karim Khurram is regarded by many as a Pashtun nationalist. Subsequently after becoming minister, he removed the Persian sign on the ministry's building and now has it only in Pashto (Persian and Pashto are the two official languages of Afghanistan). On February 10, 2008, he suspended three journalists for five days and fined them five days pay for using the Persian word for university ("daneshgah") instead of the Pashto word ("pohantoon") in their Persian articles.[4]
Khoram also scrapped initial plans to make the Afghan National Radio and Television into a public service run by an independent board. Now, he runs the service.[5]