CNN: It’s not clear yet how severely the Taliban will enforce its strict religious laws against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ citizens. No official statement has been made, but in an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper in July, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexuality — stoning or being crushed under a wall. Click
By Farangis Najibullah Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 16, 2021 A championship runner in Kabul says the uniforms she and other Afghan sportswomen wore in domestic and international competitions fully covered their bodies and didn’t violate the Islamic hijab norms as the Taliban claims. The 24-year-old professional athlete, whose name is being withheld for her protection,
"Afghan life is all about color." Afghan women are posting photos of their colorful traditional dress, to challenge the all-black, fully covered image propagated by the Taliban. pic.twitter.com/52jbIcuXjg — DW News (@dwnews) September 13, 2021
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 13, 2021 The United Nations human rights chief has criticized the Taliban’s record since seizing control of Afghanistan last month as the UN hosts a high-level conference to raise more than $600 million for the war-torn country to avoid a looming humanitarian crisis. Addressing the September 13 donor conference
Ayesha Tanzeem VOA News September 11, 2021 ISLAMABAD – Twenty-four-year-old Tamana Zaryab Paryani is too young to remember the last Taliban rule, from 1996-2001, but she recalls the horror stories her mother told her. “My mother said Taliban were a terrorist group … it was a brutal time. They used to stone people to death,”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 11, 2021 KABUL — A young Afghan woman has quit her job at a private foreign-language center in Kabul after what she described as intimidation and harassment by Taliban fighters stationed outside her workplace. The 24-year-old English teacher — whose name is being withheld for her protection — returned to
Habibullah Shabab found his calling as a singer — but since the Taliban’s return to power, he’s given up performing and instead makes a living as a shopkeeper. The Taliban has not yet imposed a ban on music as it did in the 1990s, but Shabab and others fear such a policy is imminent,
New York Post: A desperate Afghan dad has said he is prepared to sell his daughter for just $580 so he can save the rest of his family of seven from starvation — and give the 4-year-old a chance at a better life. Ex-cop Mir Nazir told the Times of London he is already in
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 9, 2021 Protesters have returned to the streets in different parts of Afghanistan amid growing concern over the direction of the new government led by hard-line Taliban veterans after the militants outlawed protests “for the time being” and indicated women may be banned from participating in sports. Three weeks after
By Ron Synovitz Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty September 8, 2021 A return to lurid public executions and floggings is inevitable in Afghanistan as the Taliban transforms the country’s court system under its strict interpretation of Islamic law, an Afghan legal scholar says. “We’re going to go back,” says Haroun Rahimi, an assistant law professor for the