RAWANews: Kobra Rezaee, just 26 years old and an Afghan refugee struggling to survive in Iran, vanished nearly two months ago after leaving for work—and what was found shattered any sense of humanity. In early June, her dismembered body was horrifically dumped like trash in the Pishva area of Varamin, near Tehran. Her limbs were severed, and parts of her—along with her phone and ID—are still missing, erased as if she never existed. DNA tests painfully confirmed the unbearable truth: this young woman’s life was ended in the cruelest way imaginable.      Full news...

TOLO News: These retirees are calling on officials to pay their pensions, which they say they have not received for nearly four years.Abdul Raoof Amin, a retiree, said: “We are demanding our pension payments. Look at what has become of this society. Today, people in need and the elderly receive financial aid from many sources. We are entering the fifth year without receiving any assistance from the Islamic Emirate, and we still have not received our pensions.”      Full news...

Deutsche Welle: In 2001, the Taliban destroyed two giant statues of Buddha in the Bamiyan valley, erasing traces of a pre-Islamic past. Amid many other global crises, the human rights situation in Afghanistan has been overshadowed in the international media. Millions of people continue to suffer from systemic rights violations under the Taliban-run government, a UN report has found.      Full news...

BBC: The Taliban government in Afghanistan has banned chess until further notice due to fears the game is a source of gambling. Officials said the game has been prohibited indefinitely until its compatibility with Islamic law can be determined. Chess is the latest sport to be restricted by the Taliban. Women are essentially barred from participating in sport at all.      Full news...

Rukhshana: A young woman has died after setting herself on fire in Taywara district of Ghor province in an alleged attempt to escape a forced marriage, local sources told Rukhshana Media. The self-immolation occurred Sunday on the same day that the woman was allegedly to be taken to the brother of local Taliban commander in Ghor, sources said.      Full news...

Daily 8am: This article was written by Behnia for Hasht-e Subh Daily and published on March 27, 2025. An edited version of the article is published on Global Voices under a media partnership agreement. Following the Taliban’s imposition of restrictions on women’s education, academic pursuits, and employment, many women and girls have turned to various addictive substances in Afghanistan. Hasht-e Subh Daily’s investigative report revealed that girls and women use tobacco products as well as sedative and anti-anxiety medications to escape psychological pressures, mental strain, and depression.      Full news...

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: Since Taliban forces effectively overthrew the Afghan government in August 2021, the Taliban and various armed groups, including the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K), have committed widespread and systematic human rights violations and abuses throughout the country. The Taliban de facto authorities have implemented restrictive policies and practices that deny women and girls their human rights, perpetuating extreme forms of gender-based discrimination and flagrantly violating the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).      Full news...

The Guardian: When the Taliban began marching towards cities across Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Alia, a 22-year-old Afghan journalist, found herself doing some of the most important work of her short life and career.In the weeks leading up to the Taliban takeover in August, Alia’s voice on the radio became familiar to many in northern Afghanistan. She reported on the withdrawal of foreign troops, the siege of government offices and on the detention of former officials in her province.      Full news...

Reuters: Since seizing power in 2021, Afghanistan's Taliban administration has rolled back hard-fought rights won by Afghan women and girls during two decades of rule by American-backed governments.The International Criminal Court prosecutor on Thursday said he had applied for arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, including supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, accusing them of crimes against humanity for widespread discrimination against women and girls.      Full news...

RASC News Agency: On Saturday, the first day of Ramadan, Whitney Wright, an American adult film actress, released new images documenting her travels across various Afghanistan cities. In one particularly striking photograph, she is seen carrying a Kalashnikov rifle over her shoulder, raising questions about the nature of her visit. It appears that Wright is moving freely across the country under Taliban protection. Previously, she had shared footage of herself at Band-e Amir, Afghanistan’s renowned national park.      Full news...

UnHerd: Taliban. The word is synonymous with religious fundamentalism — vividly clear since the militants swept back into Kabul in August 2021. Amid public executions and gender apartheid, there has been an intensifying war on free speech. Since the Taliban returned to power, media have been censored and radio stations in particular forced off the air. Yet, curiously, one foreign broadcaster endures: the BBC. On 1 December 2022, the Taliban issued a decree closing down the two local stations run by the BBC’s rivals: Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.      Full news...

National Post: She was 20 years old, dreaming of a fulfilled life. The smart, ambitious young woman was among 20 Afghan women and girls enrolled in a secret school, seeking knowledge and a future.But the Taliban were back in charge after Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan in September 2021, and they had different plans, as did her authoritarian, ultra-conservative father; she would marry an Afghan man of his choosing living in Turkey, a man she did not love.      Full news...

CNN: The Taliban suspended the operation of Afghanistan’s only women’s radio station after raiding its premises on Tuesday, deepening the exclusion of women from public life and society since the group took power in 2021. Kabul-based Radio Begum – a station run by women with content aimed at women’s education – said officers from the Taliban’s information and culture ministry restrained the station’s staff as it searched its premises in the nation’s capital.      Full news...

Times Now News: Ever since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban have ordered the most brutal reversal of women's rights. Women and girls have lost access to education, jobs, public spaces, and even basic rights—many of which most of us would take for granted. Women around the world have been fighting for their rights, and this has dealt a grievous blow to all those efforts. Upon their return, the Taliban have established the most regressive government. Actor Meryl Streep, who attended an event in September last year as part of the UN General Assembly in New York, spoke about the situation facing women and girls in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Jurist News: The UK Independent Afghanistan Inquiry published Wednesday has shed light on allegations of unlawful killings carried out by British special forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013. The inquiry, which examined classified military records, whistleblower accounts, and survivor testimonies, uncovered a disturbing pattern of behavior that raises serious questions about accountability and the rule of law in armed conflict.According to a video statement released Wednesday by Sir Charles Haddon-Cave, the chair of the inquiry, seven special forces witnesses were questioned in secret, more than ten years after they voiced concerns about alleged purposeful detention activities in Afghanistan.      Full news...

France 24: The Taliban’s supreme leader has issued an order banning the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas used by Afghan women and saying that existing ones should be blocked. According to a statement released late Saturday by the Taliban government spokesman, new buildings should not have windows through which it is possible to see “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbour’s well and other places usually used by women”.      Full news...

The Associated Press: The Taliban say they will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women, the latest crackdown on women’s rights since they took power in August 2021. The announcement comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly. In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan.      Full news...

AFP: Health officials met with directors of education institutes on Monday in the capital Kabul to inform them of the ruling, an official from the public health ministry who was not authorised to speak to the media told AFP. "There is no official letter but the directors of institutes were informed in a meeting that women and girls can't study anymore in their institutes," he said. "They were not provided with any details and justification and were just told of the order of the supreme leader and were asked to implement it."      Full news...

The Guardian: Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention. Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused. All the women said they had no other option to begging on the streets for money and food for their children after being unable to find paid work.      Full news...

The Diplomat: More than three years since the Taliban took over Afghanistan for the second time, the situation is more dire for Afghan ordinary citizens than ever. Amid the barren landscape of rural Afghanistan, families struggle to survive on the edge of famine. Afghans, with no employment and no business opportunities, have no prospect of economic stability. The humanitarian aid intended to reach these vulnerable communities is intercepted, redirected to the black market, or siphoned into the coffers of powerful individuals.      Full news...

United Nations: The report found that only 17 per cent of the 82 operational facilities cater exclusively to women, and services for female patients are accessible in just over a third of provinces, leaving many women without adequate care. The survey also highlights acute shortages of qualified medical personnel, essential supplies, and infrastructure funding. Over 72 per cent of centres operate at or near full capacity, yet many lack basic resources such as naloxone, a life-saving medication for opioid overdoses.      Full news...

The Independent: At least 10 people were killed in Afghanistan’s Baghlan province when a gunman opened fire on Sufis participating in a weekly ritual at a local shrine, the country’s interior ministry said on Friday. The details are still unclear but the ministry said it is conducting investigations to understand the nature of the attack and identify those responsible.The incident took place in Afghanistan’s remote Nahrin district.      Full news...

AFP: Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles — Taliban authorities are working to remove “un-Islamic” and anti-government literature from circulation. Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles — Taliban authorities are working to remove “un-Islamic” and anti-government literature from circulation.      Full news...

Yahoo News: The Taliban Supreme Court on Wednesday announced the public execution of a convicted murderer in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktia. Taliban officials and local residents observed the execution, which took place in a sports stadium in the regional capital Gardez. In a statement, the Supreme Court identified the convicted murderer as Ayaz Asad, a local resident of the province who had intentionally killed another Afghan using a Kalashnikov rifle.      Full news...

The Independent: The Taliban in Afghanistan have implemented a bizarre new edict that will further curb the voices of women who are already prohibited from speaking in public.Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women, reported Amu TV, an Afghan news channel based in Virginia, US.      Full news...

AFP: Afghanistan’s morality ministry is gradually introducing a ban on images of living beings in media, with multiple provinces announcing restrictions and some Taliban officials refusing to be photographed or filmed, journalists across the country told AFP. Since mid-October the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) has held meetings with journalists in one province after another.      Full news...

AFP: Afghanistan’s Taliban morality ministry pledged Monday to implement a law banning news media from publishing images of all living things, with journalists told the rule will be gradually enforced. It comes after the Taliban government recently announced legislation formalising their strict interpretations of Islamic law that have been imposed since they swept to power in 2021.      Full news...

The Wire: Writer and activist Arundhati Roy has been awarded the PEN Pinter Prize 2024. This is an annual award set up by English PEN in the memory of playwright Harold Pinter. Shortly after having been named for the prize, Roy announced that her share of the prize money will be donated to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. She named Alaa Abd el-Fattah, British-Egyptian writer and activist, a ‘Writer of Courage’ who she would share her award with. The following is her acceptance speech for the prize, delivered on the evening of October 10, 2024, at the British Library.      Full news...

VOA news: Hardline Taliban authorities in Afghanistan reported Wednesday that nine people, including at least two women, were publicly flogged after being convicted of various crimes, such as adultery. Five of the punishments took place at a sports stadium in Kandahar, capital of the eponymous southern province. Local Taliban officials, judicial officers, and ordinary Afghans were among the onlookers. The Taliban’s Supreme Court announced the details, saying the five individuals were found guilty of adultery, sodomy, and robbery, with each of them receiving 39 lashes and prison sentences ranging from two to seven years.      Full news...

Global Security Review: Afghanistan, under Taliban control, is a powder keg ready to erupt with consequences that will ripple throughout the region and the world. The driving forces of this impending disaster are deeply rooted in the Taliban’s ideological, strategic, and operational maneuvers, which intensified after the American exit. The brainwashing of youths, monopoly over illicit drug production, sheltering and supporting global terrorist groups, weaponization of poverty, and recruitment of refugees has brought Afghanistan to the verge of an imminent explosion, with consequences that may prove more consequential than those of September 11, 2001. Understanding what the Taliban is doing deserves further explanation.      Full news...