AFP: Gunmen killed a group of civilians in central Afghanistan on Thursday, the interior ministry said, in an attack that was claimed by the local chapter of the Islamic State group. “Fifteen Shiite (Muslims) were killed and six others wounded in an attack carried out by the soldiers of the caliphate in central Afghanistan,” the group’s Amaq media wing said in a statement.      Full news...

The Guardian: “So pervasive is the Taliban’s institutionalised gender oppression, and so slender are the spaces in which women and girls may live freely, that in Afghanistan today almost any act can be characterised as an act of resistance.” That conclusion from Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, encapsulates how unbearably suffocating it is to be female in Afghanistan today      Full news...

The Telegraph: The Taliban is using female workers to spy on other women to enforce harsh new laws. Since returning to power in 2021, the Afghan regime has banned women from working outside the home or attending school and university. But some women are still employed at the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MPVPV), the body that polices the restrictions, and more recruits are wanted. “They are needed to handle other women,” said an official from the ministry.      Full news...

France24: The oppression of Afghan women continues unabated before the eyes of the world. The Taliban imposed severe new restrictions earlier this month, with women not only obliged to cover their faces but now forbidden from raising their voices, singing or reading aloud in public. Western countries – led by the US and EU – have condemned the new laws but also seem resigned to the Taliban regime, which offers some stability in the region.      Full news...

ABC News: Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue. The laws were issued Wednesday after they were approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, a government spokesman said. The Taliban had set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” after seizing power in 2021. The ministry published its vice and virtue laws on Wednesday that cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations.      Full news...

VOA: Taliban morality police in Afghanistan said Tuesday that they had “seized and destroyed” more than 21,000 musical instruments over the past year as part of a crackdown on what they called anti-Islam practices. Officials of the so-called Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice discussed their “annual performance” at a news conference in Kabul a day after Taliban authorities publicly staged a mass burning of hundreds of musical instruments in the nearby northern Parwan province.      Full news...

The Guardian: Relief set in the moment Hasina crossed the border into Iran. For two years, the Taliban barred the 24-year-old medical student from continuing her studies. Now, as part of a growing exodus of Afghan women who desperately want an education, Hasina is pursuing her degree in Tehran. “I was terrified the Taliban would prevent me from leaving,” she says. Last year, they stopped 100 female Afghan students boarding a flight to take up places at university in the United Arab Emirates where they had won scholarships.      Full news...

The Defense Post: A UN counter-terrorism official warned Thursday that the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan branch poses the greatest external terrorist threat to Europe as it boosts its organizational strength. “ISIL-K has improved its financial and logistical capabilities in the past six months, including by tapping into Afghan and Central Asian diasporas for support,” Vladimir Voronkov, undersecretary-general for counter-terrorism, said.      Full news...

local12.com: SIGAR noted in its report that the risk of Taliban-created nonprofits receiving U.S. funds highlights the importance of the Department of State following its vetting requirements. As of September, many of the more than 1,000 organizations that have registered with Afghanistan’s Ministry of Economy have ties to the Taliban, according to the watchdog.      Full news...

RAWANews: The most recent case that received widespread media attention is the abduction of a 19-year-old girl named Tahira in the Panjab district of Bamiyan province. This girl, who owned a tailor shop in the center of Panjab district, was forcibly taken by the Taliban while returning home and was thrown into a military vehicle. It is said that she was held by the Taliban for three days, during which she was sexually assaulted. She was released in the city of Bamiyan after protests and efforts by the local people. Tahira filed an official complaint against the Taliban, but no one came to her aid. (An image of her complaint form was circulated in the media.)      Full news...

RAWANews: Zarmina Paryani, a woman who protested against the Taliban, was imprisoned and tortured by the regime. She managed to escape Afghanistan with several of her sisters and sought asylum in Germany. In a Facebook post, she revealed that the Taliban had forcibly stripped her naked in prison and took photos of her. Zarmina and her three sisters were arrested in Kabul in early 2022 and, after enduring three weeks of imprisonment and torture, were released. Her revelations had a widespread coverage on social media and sparked collective outrage against the Taliban.      Full news...

The Associated Press: The Taliban’s morality police are contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans, according to a U.N. report published Tuesday. Edicts and some of the methods used to enforce them constituted a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the report said. The Taliban set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” after seizing power in 2021. Since then, the ministry has enforced decrees issued by the Taliban leadership that have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, like dress codes, segregated education and employment, and having a male guardian when they travel.      Full news...

The Guardian: The Guardian has seen video evidence of a female Afghan human rights activist being gang-raped and tortured in a Taliban jail by armed men. There have been mounting reports that sexual violence is being inflicted on women and girls being held in detention in Afghanistan, but this video is believed to be the first direct evidence of these crimes occurring. According to the activist, the mobile phone footage was later sent to her as a threat that it would be shared more widely if she continued to speak out against the Taliban regime.      Full news...

Daily Wrap: It has been three years since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. Since then, they have been systematically stripping women of their rights. Now, in addition, the country’s ruling fundamentalists have reduced by 75% the salaries of the few women who are allowed to work. In August 2021, after the sitting president of Afghanistan fled, the Taliban entered Kabul and took control of the country. Women suffered the most, with their rights being regularly curtailed by the fundamentalists.      Full news...

Khama Press: According to reports, staff from the Sihat-e-Tafal, Stomatology, Sheikh Zayed, and Wazir Akbar Khan hospitals have participated in the strike. Images released by the media on Saturday show dozens of women in medical uniforms gathering in front of these hospitals. Some of these women have criticized the Taliban’s decision to reduce the salaries of female employees as “unjust,” stating that 5,000 Afghanis is insufficient even for the most basic living expenses.      Full news...

The Guardian: Teenage girls and young women arrested by the Taliban for wearing “bad hijab” say they have been subjected to sexual violence and assault in detention. In more than one case the arrests and sexual abuse that young women faced while in custody earlier this year led to suicide and attempted suicide, reporters from the Afghan news service Zan Times were told. In one case, a woman’s body was allegedly found in a canal a few weeks after she had been taken into custody by Taliban militants, with a source close to her family saying she had been sexually abused before her death.      Full news...

Deccan Herald: It is the ultimate act of bad faith. The United Nations (UN) has decided to exclude women from its upcoming global conference on Afghanistan. Why? The Taliban, it seems, insisted on it. The Islamic fundamentalist group wasn’t invited to the first meeting in May 2023, and refused to attend the next one in February because the UN wouldn’t accept the list of preconditions for its participation. “These conditions first of all denied us the right to talk to other representatives of the Afghan society and demanded a treatment that would, I would say, to a large extent be similar to recognition” of the Taliban as the governing authority, Secretary-General António Guterres said at the time.      Full news...

RAWA NEWS: Hafiz Ziaullah Hashimi, the spokesperson for the Taliban's Ministry of [anti]Higher Education, shared a video clip of Sheikh Abdul Ali Deobandi on his X profile, labeling it an “important Fatwa.” In the clip, Sheikh Deobandi states that teaching women, even at home, is prohibited because it leads to writing letters to men, which he considers sinful. A Fatwa is an Islamic legal opinion issued by a qualified scholar on specific religious or legal issues.      Full news...

The Diplomat: In the first week of June 2024, locals in the remote Tangi Shadan village of Allahyar district of Afghanistan’s Ghor province discovered the bodies of a 45-year-old widow and her 7-year-old granddaughter. Both had disappeared about two months earlier and are believed to have been killed for their property by men close to Mawlawi Jaber, the Taliban district governor. As her relatives approached the local Taliban office, the governor reportedly asked for the reason for a widow living without remarrying.      Full news...

Forbes: In June 2024, in the build-up to the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, published his report on “The phenomenon of an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.” The report follows a litany of reports on how, since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan have been perishing one by one.      Full news...

Human Rights Watch: On June 18, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, will present to the UN Human Rights Council his latest report, which powerfully calls for the Taliban to be held accountable for their crimes against women and girls. The report, issued today, examines the Taliban’s “institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity and exclusion of women and girls.”      Full news...

Long War Journal: In the latest issue of pamphlets released by al Qaeda’s central as-Sahab media entitled “This is Gaza: A War of Existence, Not a War of Borders,” Sayf al-Adl, believed to be al Qaeda’s current overall emir, calls on supporters around the world to migrate to Afghanistan. In doing so, this offers the most clear and open call for foreigners to join al Qaeda’s ranks in Afghanistan since the Taliban captured the country in 2021. Adl’s message thus acts to officially pronounce Afghanistan as a safe-haven for al Qaeda and its future plans.      Full news...

Fox News: The United Nations is condemning the Taliban after it publicly flogged more than 60 people at a sports stadium in northern Afghanistan. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan wrote on X that 63 people were “publicly lashed” by “Afghanistan’s de facto authorities” on Tuesday in the Sari Pul province. “UNAMA reiterates its condemnation of corporal punishment and calls for respect for international human rights obligations,” it added. Taliban’s supreme court in a statement confirmed the public flogging of 63 people including 14 women who had been accused of crimes including sodomy, theft and immoral relations.      Full news...

ABC News: About 6.5 million children in Afghanistan were forecast to experience crisis levels of hunger in 2024, a nongovernmental organization said. Nearly three out of 10 Afghan children will face crisis or emergency levels of hunger this year as the country feels the immediate impacts of floods, the long-term effects of drought, and the return of Afghans from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, according to a report released late Tuesday by Save The Children.      Full news...

Business Standard: United Nations agencies have said that the restrictions imposed by the Taliban on women and girls will increase the number of child marriages among Afghan girls by 25 per cent, Afghanistan-based TOLO News reported. UN Women, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) have released a joint two-page brief. In the brief, the UN agencies have highlighted the issues faced by Afghan women and their demands of the international community.      Full news...

The New York Times: General Abdul Raziq was one of America’s fiercest allies in the fight against the Taliban. He was young and charismatic — a courageous warrior who commanded the loyalty and respect of his men. He helped beat back the Taliban in the crucial battlefield of Kandahar, even as the insurgents advanced across Afghanistan. But his success, until his 2018 assassination, was built on torture, extrajudicial killing and abduction. In the name of security, he transformed the Kandahar police into a combat force without constraints. His officers, who were trained, armed and paid by the U.S., took no note of human rights or due process, according to a Times investigation into thousands of cases. Most of his victims were never seen again.      Full news...

AFP: When she first heard the gunshots, French tourist Anne-France Brill thought for a split second there was a celebration in the Afghan market where she and her fellow travelers stopped to buy fruit. But then she heard one of her companions screaming: “I realized she had blood all over her stomach.” The 55-year-old had been sitting in a van during a group tour in the mountainous city of Bamiyan on Friday evening when a gunman approached their vehicles and opened fire.      Full news...

RSF News: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is alarmed by a worrying increase in the restrictions imposed on journalists, with authoritarian directives on women journalists' dress, restrictions on women’s access to the audiovisual media and a ban on filming or photographing Taliban officials. The Afghan repression continues to intensify and specifically targets women’s access to the media, whether as journalists or as listeners and spectators. A series of directives issued since February illustrate this. The governor of Kandahar, in the south of the country, has banned video footage of local Taliban leaders. The chief of police in the eastern province of Khost has banned calls from women during radio or television broadcasts.      Full news...

TNN:Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials intercepted consul general of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Zakia Wardak, at the Mumbai airport recently and recovered 25 kg of gold worth Rs 18.6 crore that she was allegedly trying to smuggle into India from Dubai.The incident occurred on April 25 and a case of gold smuggling under the Customs Act, 1962, has been registered.The gold has been seized under a panchnama.Wardak was not arrested as she enjoys diplomatic immunity, sources said. Under the law, if the amount of smuggled gold is valued above Rs 1 crore, the suspect is arrested and faces criminal prosecution.      Full news...

Khaama Press: In videos circulated on social media, protesters in Badakhshan are heard expressing their opposition to the Taliban in the province, rejecting the “Islamic Emirates” presence. The residents of Darayim district, Badakhshan province, staged widespread protests against The Taliban on Friday, May 3rd. Residents of Badakhshan stated that protests continued following the killing of at least one person due to Taliban gunfire.      Full news...