8am: For more than four years, the Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on women and girls. Alongside these measures, they have also closed criminal and sexual assault cases in ways that favor the accused and harm the victims, often by forcing women into marriage. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: New photos from Afghanistan show a Taliban law banning images of people and animals is now being enforced across most of the country, resulting in seafood censored from menus, blacked-out museum displays, and covered mannequins. Click here to view photos (external link).
Afghanistan International: The Taliban have expanded a ban on publishing and broadcasting images of living beings to 24 provinces across Afghanistan, further tightening restrictions on media and freedom of expression, the Afghanistan Journalists Center said. In a statement issued on Thursday, January 8, the Afghanistan Journalists Center said the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of
8am: Many citizens speak openly about the growing spread of unemployment and the Taliban’s failure to address it. They say the lack of job opportunities has made daily life harder than at any other time they can remember. According to them, anyone with a broker or personal ties to Taliban members can quickly secure a
Afghanistan International: In an open letter addressed to the special rapporteurs of the UN Human Rights Council, the activists said the Taliban administration has pursued policies that deliberately marginalise and suppress the use of Persian, one of Afghanistan’s two official languages. The letter raised concerns about what it described as linguistic and structural discrimination, accusing
Amu: Abdul Mateen Qani, spokesman for the Taliban-run interior ministry, said three local residents and one employee of a mining company were killed in fighting in Chah Ab district. Five others were wounded, he said. Qani said the Taliban deputy governor for Takhar had travelled to the area to investigate the incident. Mining operations at
8am: For more than four years, the Taliban have carried out widespread arrests, assassinations, and extrajudicial killings, while forcibly disappearing former military personnel. Despite mounting evidence, the group has consistently dismissed investigative reporting by the media, human rights organizations, and field and visual documentation, labeling them as baseless accusations. Recently, the Hasht-e Subh Daily documented
8am: Residents of the Samti area in Chah Ab District of Takhar Province rose in protest, armed with stones and sticks, against Taliban-affiliated companies they accused of plundering gold mines and destroying their water wells. Sources identify the companies as belonging to Haji Mohib and Haji Ruhullah Ruhani from Kandahar Province. They are described as
Afghanistan International: Protesters in northern Afghanistan set fire to gold mining equipment linked to the Taliban after clashes with security forces and company personnel escalated in Takhar province, local sources said. The violence followed confrontations in the Samti area of Chah Ab district, where residents have opposed what they describe as unregulated gold mining by
8am: Several residents of Rawza village, located near the historic Rawza of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, say the Taliban seized land in the same area without following legal steps or acknowledging ownership documents. They describe the area as one of the most densely populated residential zones of Ghazni city, home to more than 5,000 people