The death of a woman identified as Liza in Kabul has ignited widespread concern, with her family alleging she was killed after years of domestic abuse, while her husband’s family claims she died by suicide.

According to Liza’s father, Shamsuddin Shams, his daughter endured more than a decade of violence at the hands of her husband, Hasibullah Sarwari. He claims she had repeatedly shared details of physical abuse, including severe beatings, prior to her death.

Shams alleges that when Liza’s condition became critical, she was taken to a private hospital in Kabul for treatment. However, he says members of her husband’s family intervened, preventing doctors from carrying out essential medical procedures such as CT scans and MRI tests. He further claims that Liza’s sisters were physically assaulted at the hospital while trying to ensure she received care.

Liza reportedly died shortly after being admitted.

The family also accuses the husband’s relatives of attempting to interfere with the investigation. According to Shams, they tried to influence hospital staff and obstruct a full forensic examination by insisting the death be recorded as a suicide. Documents cited by the family indicate that only an external examination of the body was permitted, with internal forensic procedures blocked.

In the aftermath of the incident, Shams says his family has been subjected to serious threats. He claims relatives of Sarwari have issued warnings of further violence, including statements suggesting that others in the family could be targeted.

According to the family, tensions in Liza’s marriage had escalated in recent months after she learned that her husband was engaged to another woman. This reportedly led to repeated conflicts and intensified abuse.

Shams maintains that his daughter suffered severe injuries prior to her death, including broken bones and head trauma. He believes these injuries ultimately led to her death.

No official, independent findings on the cause of death have been publicly released, and the case remains a subject of dispute.

An earthquake in Afghanistan has killed eight members of the same family when their home collapsed in the Gosfand Dara area of Kabul province.

Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said on Saturday that a child aged around two years old was the only survivor. Afghanistan’s disaster management agency said the boy was injured.

The 5.8-magnitude quake struck at 8:42pm local time on Friday at a depth of 186km (115 miles). The epicentre was in the northeastern province of Badakhshan.

The capital Kabul is about 290km southwest of the epicentre.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in areas closer to the epicentre. The province is remote so it can often take several hours before local authorities can relay information back to Kabul.

Strong tremors were felt in multiple parts of Afghanistan, including Kabul and the Indian capital New Delhi, witnesses told the Reuters news agency.

Pakistan also felt the quake, including in the capital Islamabad and Peshawar, Chitral, Swat and Shangla. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Previous quakes

Afghanistan is frequently jolted by earthquakes along the Hindu Kush mountain range – near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. On average, 560 people are killed by quakes there every year.

The deadliest tremor in the country’s recent history struck last August. The shallow magnitude 6 earthquake in eastern Afghanistan wiped out mountain villages, killing at least 2,200 people

Most casualties were in Kunar province, where Afghans typically live in wood and mud-brick houses along steep valleys.

Impoverished Afghanistan often faces difficulty in responding to natural disasters, especially in remote regions.

Many homes in rural and outlying areas are poorly built with bricks, wood and mud.

A deadly shooting attack on civilians in western Afghanistan has left at least 11 people dead and several others wounded, highlighting ongoing security concerns in the country.

The incident occurred on Friday afternoon in the Deh Miri area of Injil district, Herat province, where a group of civilians had gathered for leisure. Local sources say four armed individuals riding two motorcycles arrived in the village of Deh Miri in the Injil district, first separated the men from the women and children, and then opened fire on them. According to these sources, the gunmen also fired at women and children who attempted to flee.

Initial reports from Taliban officials put the death toll at seven, with 13 injured. Local sources, however, put the death toll at no fewer than 35, saying that due to the large crowd gathered at the recreational area and the shrine, the actual number of casualties is likely higher than the figures released by the Taliban.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Taliban officials say one suspect has been arrested, and efforts are ongoing to identify and detain others involved.

A lot of citizens, particularly residents of Herat, called the Taliban a failure at providing security for the people, saying that instead of hiring mullahs to harass women and men on the streets, they should be focused on preventing such deadly incidents. These citizens also alleged that the Taliban were directly involved in this incident.

Local sources in Nuristan province say that as a result of gunfire attributed to Pakistani forces targeting a vehicle in Kamdesh district, a woman health worker and her three-year-old child have been killed, and three others injured.

According to the sources, the incident occurred on the morning of 18th March in the Bagicha area of Kamdesh district. It is said that the health worker was on his way home for the Eid holiday when the vehicle carrying her came under fire.

Among the injured are the health worker’s husband, another son, and the driver of the vehicle.

Based on available information, the health worker was employed at a medical center in Kamdesh district and had intended to travel home.

A new penal code issued by decree in Afghanistan sets harsher punishments for the mistreatment of animals than for domestic violence against women and solidifies into law inequality based on gender and social status.

The decree, which was signed by Afghanistan’s Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada in January, “defines several crimes and punishments that contravene Afghanistan’s international legal obligations,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said Thursday in remarks to the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

He urged Afghan authorities to rescind the decree.

Comprised of 119 articles, the 60-page Decree No. 12 lays out penalties for women who visit their relatives without their husband’s permission, and allows husbands and the heads of households to determine and mete out punishment in their own homes.

“It provides for the use of corporal punishment for numerous offenses, including in the home, legitimizing violence against women and children,” Turk said. “And it criminalizes criticism of the de facto leadership and their policies, in violation of freedom of expression and assembly.”

The decree states that a man who beats his wife severely enough to cause a visible cut, wound or bruise faces 15 days in prison – if his wife can prove her case to a judge. But a woman who goes to her father’s house and stays there without her husband’s permission is punished by a three months in prison, as are her relatives if they do not return her to her husband.

The decree “formally removes equality between men and women before the law,” U.N. Women Special Representative in Afghanistan Susan Ferguson said in a statement released Wednesday. “It places husbands in a position of authority over their wives and limits women’s ability to seek protection or justice.”

Penalties are harsher for mistreating animals than women. Five months in prison is the punishment for anyone having animals or birds fight. Animal and bird fighting, particularly cockfights and fights between partridges, is a popular pastime in Afghanistan but was banned after the Taliban seized power in 2021.

Afghan authorities have often issued laws laying out various prohibitions, including bans on education for girls beyond primary school, on women working in most jobs, and mandates on how women should dress and behave. But the decree is the first full penal code issued by the government.

The new penal code also lays out different treatment for the same crime depending on social class, ranging from simple warnings for clerics to corporal punishment for those deemed to be at the lowest social rungs.

Scholars and “high-ranking people” face a warning from a judge; tribal leaders and businessmen receive a warning and a court summons; “average people of society” face imprisonment; and “the lower classes” are subject to physical beatings. If an offender is sentenced to a maximum 39 lashes, they must be to “different parts of the body,” the decree states.

However, the differing treatment does not apply in murder cases, where anyone found guilty faces the death penalty. The other capital offense is insulting the Prophet Muhammad, although in that case the death penalty can be converted to six years imprisonment if the offender repents.

Speaking in Geneva, Turk called on Afghan authorities to “reverse their course on excluding half the population. Women and girls are the present and the future, and the country cannot thrive without them.”

Local sources in Badakhshan Province say that a young woman has died by suicide in the city of Fayzabad, the provincial capital.

A source in Fayzabad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the young woman took her own life on the evening of February 15th in the Old City area of Fayzabad.

According to the source, the 21-year-old woman ended her life by ingesting rat poison.

The source added that she was a graduate in nursing and had reportedly been facing ongoing domestic violence at home. She was said to have endured repeated physical and psychological abuse, which ultimately led her to take her own life.

Domestic violence remains a serious and widespread issue in Afghanistan and is considered one of the leading drivers of self-harm and suicide among women across the country. Rights groups have repeatedly warned that abuse within homes contributes to a high number of suicide cases nationwide.

So far, local Taliban officials in Badakhshan Province have not commented on the incident.

Local sources in Kabul report that the dismembered body of a woman was discovered in the Kabul River. The incident reportedly occurred on Sunday, January 14, 2026, in the Chehelston area of Kabul, where Taliban forces secured the scene after the body was found. Witnesses say the body was retrieved from a sack in the river after being spotted by children scavenging through trash. Another source indicated that the body had initially been found in a trash bin before being thrown into the river.

Taliban authorities did not allow any photography at the scene and prevented people from approaching the body. They have also not provided any information regarding the victim’s identity, the motive behind the killing, or how the case will be investigated. The lack of transparency has heightened concerns over security and accountability in the city

Taliban morality enforcers (Religious police) disrupted a graduation ceremony for medical students in Herat on 16 January, entering the venue while armed and halting the program. During the incident, more than 50 graduates were forced to remove their neckties in front of hundreds of attendees.

A video from the event shows armed Taliban members, including one carrying a Kalashnikov, going onto the stage and interrupting the host as he spoke about Afghanistan’s future and the role of educated youth. Following the intervention, the host asked the graduates to leave the stage.

The Taliban have previously claimed that neckties are anti-Islamic, arguing that they are a symbol of Western culture and resemble the Christian cross, making them unacceptable under their interpretation of Islamic dress codes.

The incident has sparked widespread criticism from citizens and social media users, many of whom described the act as humiliating and a clear violation of personal freedoms and civil rights.

Herat, Afghanistan — Khadija Ahmadzada, a 22-year-old Afghan athlete and women’s taekwondo coach, was detained by Taliban “morality” forces on January 10, 2026 while training female students at a hidden sports club in Herat’s Jebrail district, according to local sources.

Ahmadzada — who has been involved in taekwondo as both a competitor and coach and is reported to have been a member of Afghanistan’s national taekwondo team — worked to create opportunities for girls and young women to train in the sport despite severe restrictions on women’s public activities under Taliban rule.

Her father and the owner of the facility were also arrested at the same time, and all three remain held in the central prison in Herat. The family’s efforts to promote women’s sport have drawn concern from rights defenders after the arrest.

The detention has sparked protests from Afghan women’s rights activists and sports figures, who denounce the arrests as an affront to basic freedoms and call for her immediate release.

Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, has urged the Taliban to ensure Ahmadzada’s safety and release her, highlighting the detention as part of a broader pattern of intimidation against women professionals across the country.

On January 5, 2026, a young woman named Mehr Sana was shot and killed by her former husband in front of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance in Kabul.

The ministry is located near the Presidential Palace, in one of the city’s busiest areas with heavy daily pedestrian and vehicle traffic.

Despite the area’s proximity to key government buildings and its high visibility, the attacker managed to escape after the shooting.

The killing underscores the persistent dangers faced by women even after separation or divorce. Violence by former spouses remains a serious threat, while protection mechanisms for women facing such risks are limited.

The incident reflects the broader pattern of violence against women in Afghanistan, where domestic abuse and targeted killings continue amid weak accountability and inadequate timely intervention.

In the annual report of the research, dated December 31, 2025, it was noted that after Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Haiti, and Burundi had the lowest ratings regarding women's safety and their rights. In Afghanistan, the social situation of women was evaluated based on three main criteria: inclusivity, justice, and safety. The safety of women in the country and the way they are treated are significantly lower compared to other countries, and women are part of the most vulnerable and unprotected social group in Afghanistan.

Due to numerous restrictions on women's rights to education and employment, their access to basic services and humanitarian aid is severely limited. This situation has placed Afghanistan in one of the lowest spots in the UN Gender Development Index, just after Yemen.

Furthermore, Afghanistan’s streets are not considered safe for women. The "Taliban" interim government strictly controls women’s behavior in public spaces, which restricts their freedom of movement, increasing the instability and insecurity in the country.

Local sources in Takhar’s Chah Ab district say that Farkhunda, a 17-year-old girl who married the son of a powerful local figure about a month and a half ago, has been killed under suspicious circumstances in Kabul.

Sources said on the night of Sunday, November 16, 2025, that Farkhunda married Emadullah, the son of Haji Malang, 45 days ago, a marriage that, according to relatives, had been “forced” by the groom’s family, with Emadullah pressured by his father and brother to accept it.

Relatives of Farkhunda say she lived in an environment of pressure and violence after the marriage.

According to them, two nights ago, her body was found in an apartment near her mother-in-law’s home in Kabul’s Gulbahar Center.

Farkhunda’s family describes her death as “unnatural” and says that when they attempted to transfer the body to the forensic department for examination, they were threatened by Haji Malang’s sons.

According to the family, Farkhunda’s body was buried quickly, without her father’s consent and without any investigation.

Abdulmutalib Haqqani, spokesperson for the Ministry, told TOLOnews: "During this period, 24,787 families returned from Pakistan, 1,251 families from Iran, and 6 families from Turkey."

Among the returnees are not only children but also adults like Noorullah and Mohammad Amir, who have returned to their homeland for the first time and recount their painful experiences of losing shelter while living abroad.

Noorullah, deported from Pakistan, said: “We stayed at the border for two weeks, then one week in Kandahar, and now four days here in Kabul’s camp. So far, no vehicle has come to take us to our province.”

Mohammad Amir, another deportee from Pakistan, said: “Pakistani police came every day and gave us deadlines. One day they’d say we had one week, the next day they’d say three days. In the end, they forced us out.”

Mullah Gul, also deported from Pakistan, told TOLOnews: “Pakistan treated us harshly, took our money and phones just because I’m Afghan?”

The returnees are calling for more assistance and the creation of employment opportunities.

Abdulhamid, deported from Pakistan, said: “There are many problems. How will our children survive this winter? We need help, jobs, and shelter.”

Gulbuddin, another deportee, said: “They should increase their aid what we are receiving is not enough.”

While the returnee camp in Kabul still houses over 7,000 individuals, officials of the Islamic Emirate have called on neighboring countries to stop the forced deportation of Afghan refugees.

A large crowd gathered for the players' funeral on Saturday

Afghanistan has pulled out of an upcoming cricket series after three players in a local tournament were killed in an air strike it blamed Pakistan for.

The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) said it would withdraw from November's tri-nation T20 series out of respect for the dead. The three did not play for the national team.

The strike hit a home in Urgon district in Paktika province, where the players were eating dinner after a match, witnesses and local officials told the BBC.

Eight people were killed, the ACB said. Pakistan said the strike hit militants and denied targeting civilians.

The ACB named the three players who were killed as Kabeer Agha, Sibghatullah and Haroon, calling their deaths "a great loss for Afghanistan's sports community, its athletes, and the cricketing family".

The International Cricket Council (ICC) said it was "deeply saddened and appalled" by the "tragic deaths of three young and promising Afghan cricketers" in an air strike that also "claimed the lives of several civilians".

"The ICC stands in solidarity with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and echoes their grief," it said in a statement, adding that it "strongly condemns this act of violence".

The attack came hours after a temporary truce between Afghanistan and Pakistan was due to expire following days of deadly clashes on the border between the two nations. Dozens of casualties have been reported.

Pakistan said it had targeted Afghan militants in the air strike and that at least 70 combatants had been killed.

Pakistan's Minister of Information Attaullah Tarar said claims that the attack targeted civilians are "false and meant to generate support for terrorist groups operating from inside Afghanistan".

He rejected the ICC's "selective, biased and premature comment", adding it had not cited any "independent verification to substantiate these claims".

The Afghanistan Cricket Board shared this image of the three players who were killed

The Afghanistan Cricket Board shared this image of the three players who were killedIn a social media post, Afghan national team captain Rashid Khan paid tribute to the "aspiring young cricketers who dreamed of representing their nation on the world stage".

Other players for the Afghan national side joined the tributes, including Fazalhaq Farooqi, who said the attack was a "heinous, unforgivable crime".

On Saturday, large crowds of people were seen gathering at the funeral for the strike's victims.

Several coffins laid out in front of a large outdoor crowd in AfghanistanThe strike came after Pakistani officials said seven soldiers were killed in a suicide attack near the Afghan border on Friday.

The 48-hour truce between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which began on Wednesday at 13:00 GMT, has reportedly been extended to allow for negotiations.

An Afghan delegation arrived in the Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday for peace talks with the Pakistani side.

The Taliban government said it would take part in the talks despite "Pakistani aggression", which it says was Islamabad's attempt to prolong the conflict.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Pakistan should "reconsider its policies, and pursue friendly and civilised relations" with Afghanistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said on Saturday that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif would lead the country's delegation in Doha.

It said the talks will focus on ending cross-border terrorism and restoring peace and stability on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Zimbabwe will now replace Afghanistan in the T20 series.

According to the United Nations, more than nine million people in Afghanistan are facing acute food insecurity with deteriorating malnutrition threatening children and vulnerable families around the country, the local media reported on Thursday.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that the recent earthquake has deteriorated an already dire food security and nutrition crisis in Afghanistan. In its report released on Thursday, the WFP said more than nine people are facing acute food insecurity, while severe malnutrition among children and mothers has reached record levels, leading Afghan news agency Khaama Press reported.

As per the report, the Eastern Afghanistan region, especially Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, have been the most impacted. These areas were already facing critical malnutrition before the earthquakes occurred in Afghanistan and conditions have now further worsened.

The return of Afghan people after repatriation from Pakistan has further increased pressure on scarce humanitarian resources, worsening the situation for both displaced people and host communities.

So far, WFP has provided emergency food assistance to over 58,000 people in Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar provinces. However, the agency warned that many remote mountainous areas remain cut off due to rough terrain, poor roads and weak communications.

The agency stated that shortages of funds are severely restricting its response capacity. Through the current resources, aid can only be given to fewer than one million people per month, with a funding gap of around USD 622 million for the next six months. Humanitarian experts warned that most vulnerable people, especially women and children, in quake-affected areas, risk facing catastrophic levels of hunger if urgent funds are not provided.

Last month, the WFP warned that hunger in Afghanistan is increasing sharply and raised demand for urgent funding to deliver aid before winter isolates vulnerable communities across the nation. On September 18, the WFP said urgent funding is required to provide food before winter cuts off remote villages, leaving families without important supplies.

WFP's Deputy Executive Director Rania Dagash Kamara stated that needs remain "vast and immediate" and warned that millions of more Afghans could be pushed into extreme hunger in the coming months if new resources are not provided.

The crisis has been further exacerbated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) decision to suspend cash assistance programmes across the nation after September 9 following restrictions imposed on female staff.

Afghanistan's internet and mobile telephone services were down nationwide on Tuesday, and while the Taliban administration offered no immediate explanation, in recent weeks it has voiced concern about pornography online. The Taliban's restrictions on women and freedom of expression have drawn criticism from rights groups and foreign governments since the former insurgents resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021. Here are some other actions the Taliban has taken this year.

BAN ON INTERNET

On September 17, the Taliban administration announced an internet ban across a swathe of northern Afghanistan "to prevent immoral activities". The ban covers five provinces - Kunduz, Badakhshan, Baghlan, Takhar and Balkh - and includes the region's main population centres.

REMOVAL OF SOME BOOKS WRITTEN BY WOMEN

This month, the Taliban also began purging books written by women from the country's universities, the New York Times reported., opens new tabAlong with the book ban, which the Taliban said was in accordance with sharia law, it also instructed universities to drop 18 courses on democracy, human rights and women's studies, the report said.

BAN ON CHESS

In May this year, the Taliban banned chess, citing fears that it was giving rise to gambling, which it considers a vice.The International Chess Federation (FIDE) said it regretted, opens new tab the decision and that the ban would harm the development of the sport and deny opportunities for Afghan players to showcase their talent.

RESTRICTIONS ON FEMALE AID WORKERS

This month, the World Health Organization asked Taliban authorities to lift restrictions on Afghan female aid workers, to allow them to travel without male guardians and help women struggling to access care after two powerful earthquakes killed 2,200 people in the eastern part of the country.There was no change to the policy.

KABUL, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The Taliban have ordered internet and mobile phone data services to be cut across Afghanistan, diplomatic and industry sources said on Tuesday, as residents and monitoring services reported no connectivity and disruption to flights and financial services.

The Taliban administration offered no immediate explanation for the outage and could not be reached for comment. The UN called on authorities to fully restore connections.

In the past, the Taliban have voiced concern about online pornography, and authorities cut fibre-optic links to some provinces in recent weeks, with officials citing morality concerns.

"The cut in access has left Afghanistan almost completely cut off from the outside world, and risks inflicting significant harm on the Afghan people," the UN said in a statement.

Afghanistan is grappling with the aftermath of an earthquake that hit the east of the country, the return of millions of refugees expelled from neighbouring countries, and a drought in the north.

TALIBAN DIRECTIVES

An Afghan cell phone services provider, which did not want to be named, said it was working alongside other providers "to manage this sensitive and complex situation".

"We are following directives from the authorities and we hope that all telcos in the country will be authorized to recommence services as soon as possible,” the company said.

Internet connectivity in Afghanistan was flatlining around the 1% mark, said NetBlocks, an international internet access monitoring organisation. Connectivity was cut in phases on Monday, with the final stage affecting telephone services, which share infrastructure with the internet, NetBlocks said in an email to Reuters.

Private channel Tolo News, which warned viewers of a disruption to its services, said authorities had set a one-week deadline for the shutdown of 3G and 4G internet services for cell phones, leaving only the older 2G standard active.

The channel also reported disruption for private banks and the central bank, while Kabul's currency market was working off yesterday's exchange rates.

"WE CANNOT COMMUNICATE"

Shabeer, who gave only his first name, said that his job at a private internet service provider had been suspended."People today rely on technology, it is the main way to stay connected with the outside world," he said. "No one knows about the condition of their relatives, and even within Afghanistan, we cannot communicate."

Arafat Jamal, country representative for the U.N. refugee agency, told reporters via satellite link from Kabul that it could no longer reach its frontline aid workers, including those helping with the earthquake response."It is another crisis on top of the existing crisis. It is utterly unnecessary for this kind of interruption to take place, and the impact is going to be on the lives of Afghan people," he said, adding that it was seeking a waiver from the blackout from authorities.

Strictures ordered by the Taliban leadership, based in Kandahar, have grown increasingly hardline.

This month, authorities stopped women working for the UN from entering its offices. Earlier, women were banned from many lines of employment and girls from attending high school.

The Taliban have said they respect women's rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law.

Women's rights activist Sanam Kabiri said the Taliban had already closed schools, universities, recreation, and sports facilities for women.

"The Taliban are using every tool at their disposal to suppress the people," Kabiri, who is based outside of Afghanistan, told journalists in a video posting."What else do these ignorant men of another century want from our oppressed people?"

Women faced with curbs on leaving their homes to work had turned to the internet for an economic lifeline that allowed some to work from home.

In recent weeks the Taliban have engaged with U.S. officials, especially regarding American citizens detained in Afghanistan, one of whom they released, opens new tab on Sunday.

Sources have confirmed that Taliban members in western Afghanistan shot a man dead and hanged his body in public on Friday, August 22. The incident has drawn condemnation from rights activists who described the act as a summary execution and a violation of human dignity.

Witnesses told Amu that the man was hanged from an old tank at the busy Kandahar Gate area of Herat, where a large crowd gathered to watch. Videos circulating on social media showed Taliban members kicking the body in the head and face as bystanders filmed the scene.

In the footage, a Taliban fighter identified the man as a member of an armed opposition group and accused him of killing two Taliban members, including Mawlawi Hassan Akhund, the commander of Taliban’s 10th security district in Herat. The opposition group “Nahzat Azadi-Bakhsh Islami Mardom Afghanistan” — which has claimed responsibility for attacks in western Afghanistan — had said earlier this week it was behind the assault that killed Akhund.

A piece of paper bearing the words “Death to the Nahzat Azadi-Bakhsh Afghanistan group” was also seen attached to the corpse.

The Taliban’s Herat police command later issued a conflicting statement on X, formerly Twitter, claiming the man was only suspected of theft. The statement said he was identified by residents, detained during a Taliban operation, and “eliminated.”

Rights activists condemned the act as an unlawful killing.

“Taking away someone’s right to life without a fair trial and due process is a blatant violation of human rights,” said Hadi Farzam, a human rights activist. “Hanging the body in public after the killing is a direct affront to human dignity.”

A member of the Window of Hope women’s movement told Amu that Taliban trials deny defendants the right to lawyers or defense. “The Taliban’s use of executions and corporal punishment is intensifying, and taking away the right to life contradicts both justice and Islamic principles,” she said.

This is not the first such incident. In recent years, the Taliban have carried out multiple public executions. Last year, four men accused of kidnapping were shot and hanged in Herat, while earlier this year four more people were executed in Farah, Nimroz, and Badghis provinces.

Afghanistan is seeing its sharpest-ever surge of child malnutrition, the World Food Programme said Monday, adding it needed $539 million to help the country’s most vulnerable families.

Almost 10 million people, a quarter of Afghanistan’s population, face acute food insecurity. One in three children is stunted.

The WFP said the rise in child malnutrition was linked to a drop in emergency food assistance over the past two years because of dwindling donor support. In April, the administration of US President Donald Trump cut off food aid to Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries.

The US had been the largest funder of the WFP, providing $4.5 billion of the $9.8 billion in donations last year. Previous US administrations viewed such aid as serving national security by alleviating conflict, poverty, extremism and curbing migration.

Food insecurity in Afghanistan is being worsened by mass returns from neighboring countries, which are deporting foreigners they say are living there illegally.

The WFP said it has supported 60,000 Afghans returning from Iran in the last two months, a fraction of those crossing the border.

“Going forward, the WFP does not have sufficient funding to cover the returnee response at this time and requires $15 million to assist all eligible returnees from Iran,” said WFP Communications Officer Ziauddin Safi. He said the agency needs $539 million through January to help vulnerable families across Afghanistan.

Climate change is also hurting the population, especially those in rural areas.

Matiullah Khalis, head of the National Environmental Protection Agency, said last week that drought, water shortages, declining arable land, and flash floods were having a “profound impact” on people’s lives and the economy.

Afghan journalists endured ongoing harassment and intimidation from Taliban authorities in July, with the jailing of at least seven media workers. The International Federation of Journalists joins its affiliate, the Afghan Independent Journalists Union (AIJU), in calling for the immediate release of all media workers and an end to the arbitrary detention of media workers.

The arrests were recorded in IFJ monitoring between July 6 to 30. In one incident, three journalists were arrested on July 24 by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The editor in chief of Tawana News Agency and head of the Afghanistan Media Institute, Abuzar Sarempuli, was detained along with two other Tawana journalists, Basheer Hatef and Shakeeb Ahmad Nazari, with authorities alleging Sarempuli received funds from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), UNESCO, and the Iranian government to allegedly promote women’s employment and publish reports critical of the Taliban. He was subsequently charged with moral corruption and espionage with a “confession” filmed and released by the Taliban. The status of all three remains unknown.

On July 15, Pixel Media Content Company’s director and deputy director in Kabul, Ahmad Nawid Asghari and Mushtaq Ahmad Halimi, were taken into custody with the Taliban alleging the pair had dubbed an ‘un-Islamic’ television series for foreign media outlets. Both men allegedly pledged adherence to Taliban media directives on July 28, before being released on July 30. On July 21, an unidentified media worker was detained in Kabul, accused of providing technical support to exiled Afghan news outlets. On July 6, an unnamed provincial journalist was arrestedfor reporting deemed inconsistent with Taliban-approved narratives and released after two days.

In the same period, three journalists held in long-term custody were released. Islam Totakhil and Ahmad Zia Amanyar, from the jointly operated Radio Jawanan and Radio Begum, were released on July 30. They had been detained since January 2025, when the Taliban shuttered both stations and were accused of sharing content on social media about former Afghanistan women cricketers now living in Australia. Radio Khoshhal’s editor-in-chief, Solaiman Rahil, was also released a day later, on July 31 after being arrested on May 5 for posting a video on Facebook about two impoverished women which allegedly criticised a senior Taliban media official.

The use of arbitrary detainment and the intimidation of journalists by the Taliban by the threat of jail has been a frequent tool of the Taliban, with IFJ’s South Asia Press Freedom Report 2024-25 documenting 28 media worker arrests, between May 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025. The 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranked Afghanistan 178 out of 180 countries, ranking the country worse than North Korea and Iran.

The AIJU welcomed the release of six of the journalists as a positive sign from the Taliban but remained concerned about the other ongoing detentions in the country.

The AIJU said: “AIJU respectfully calls on the authorities of the Islamic Emirate to demonstrate goodwill by facilitating the release of the remaining detainees, many of whom have been in custody for an extended period.”

The IFJ said: “The ongoing jailing of journalists under dubious charges, draconian media directives, and shuttering of independent outlets demonstrate the parlous media environment in Afghanistan. The Taliban should respect media rights and cease the jailing and persecution of independent and critical media.”

In a renewed and intensified assault on women's freedoms, the Taliban has launched a wave of arbitrary arrests across Afghanistan, targeting women and girls accused of violating the group’s extreme interpretation of hijab rules. Over the past week alone, dozens of women have been detained in Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif, under vague and ever-changing standards of “modesty,” with no due process or legal justification.

These arrests are taking place in public spaces — streets, shopping malls, cafes, and university campuses — where women are simply trying to go about their daily lives. In Kabul, several women were picked up by Taliban forces from the Shahr-e Naw, Dasht-e-Barchi, and Qala-e-Fataullah areas. Witnesses reported that Taliban agents stopped women in marketplaces, detained them for so-called “bad hijab,” and, in some cases, physically assaulted them before forcing them into vehicles. They were held in so-called “morality centers” and only released after their male guardians signed written guarantees to “correct” their behavior.

In Herat, at least 26 women were arrested in recent days, many of them young and some reportedly underage. Taliban officials confirmed the detentions, claiming the women had been warned previously, and justifying the arrests with threats of escalating punishment. These women were taken to facilities run by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — a feared institution that now acts as a religious police force.

Mazar-e-Sharif saw similar scenes when Taliban agents stormed a shopping center and arrested around ten women, accusing them of not covering their faces fully. Those arrested were reportedly held without access to legal representation, family contact, or medical care. Local reports suggest that some families are now too afraid to let their daughters leave home, fearing they could be next.

The United Nations and human rights watchdogs have condemned these arrests, describing them as serious violations of international law and a clear sign of Afghanistan’s descent into gender apartheid. However, the Taliban shows no signs of backing down. Instead, officials from the Ministry have doubled down on their threats, announcing that any woman found to be wearing a “bad hijab” will be punished immediately, without prior warning.

These acts are not about religion — they are about domination. The Taliban is using hijab enforcement as a political weapon to silence and erase women. By criminalizing ordinary clothing choices, they are sending a chilling message: women do not belong in public, and any attempt to assert their presence will be met with force. This is a continuation of the Taliban's systematic dismantling of women's rights, which includes bans on girls’ education beyond sixth grade, prohibitions on women working with NGOs and international organizations, and harsh restrictions on mobility and appearance.

Despite the growing repression, many Afghan women are resisting — refusing to disappear, documenting abuses, and speaking out even at great personal risk. But their voices are being met with indifference from much of the international community. The time for symbolic condemnation has passed. The Taliban’s actions amount to a sustained campaign of gender-based persecution, and they must be treated as such. Without concrete international pressure, the regime will continue its war on women unchecked, emboldened by the silence of a world that once promised to stand with the Afghan people.

Photos published by The Telegraph.

More than 200 Afghan soldiers and police murdered by the Taliban since a “kill list” was leaked by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have been named in a dossier.

Their names were compiled by independent caseworkers highlighting the plight of Afghans who worked with British and US forces.

But a court order imposed by a senior judge prevents The Telegraph from reporting whether the dead had first appeared on the MoD list, which was accidentally made public in February 2022.

The Taliban claims the MoD list came into its possession in 2022 and that it has been hunting down those identified in it ever since.

The Telegraph can disclose that a unit of the Taliban’s special forces – known as Yarmok 60 – has been assigned to locate them.

The list recorded applicants to an asylum scheme run by the MoD that was intended, following the fall of Kabul in 2021, to give sanctuary to Afghans who had worked with British troops.

It remains unclear how many of those on the list were identified by the Taliban, tracked down and murdered as a consequence.

John Healey, the Defence Secretary, admitted on Wednesday that he was “unable to say for sure” whether anyone had been killed as a result of the data breach.

But he insisted that, three years on from the leak, it was “highly unlikely” that being on the list would now increase the risk of being targeted by the Taliban.

Col Toorjan was killed with several family members last June


Hamidullah Khosti was killed on July 23 last year


Muzamil Nejrabi was killed in Kapisa province


Hayatullah Nizami’s body was found in northern Taloqan city


Abdul Rahman Delawar

A super-injunction was lifted by the High Court on Tuesday, allowing the leak to be reported for the first time. But a court order remains in place that prevents using the database to reveal the identities of Afghans who may have been targeted as a result.

Among the former Afghan special forces soldiers killed by the Taliban since the list was leaked are young and middle-aged men assassinated by the new regime in different parts of the country, some with their family members.

Col Toorjan, a police commander in southern Helmand, was killed with several family members as he was leaving a mosque on June 24 last year.

One month later, Taliban forces shot and killed another former government army officer in the eastern Khost province.

The Taliban executed Hamidullah Khosti on July 23 in the Alishar district. He had arrived there the previous day to attend a wedding ceremony.

Despite a general amnesty declared by Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban supreme leader, the group has continued to arrest and kill former government military personnel and employees for nearly four years.Another former government army officer was shot and killed by Taliban forces in Kapisa province in July 2022, five months after the list was leaked.

Muzamil Nejrabi was killed at night in Arbab Khil village in the Nejrab district of Kapisa province.

The young man had left his home at 10.30pm to irrigate his agricultural fields when he was shot by soldiers from the Taliban’s Fifth Battalion, First Brigade, stationed in Kapisa. He died on the way to the hospital.

Friends said he had got married three months before his assassination.

In February last year, the bloody corpse of Hayatullah Nizami, a former operations commander of the third security zone in northern Taloqan city, was discovered in the Bishkapa area, near the Taliban army brigade of the city in Takhar province.

According to a local source, Nizami, previously a member of the security forces, had been working as an employee at a company that collaborated with the Taloqan municipality following the fall of the Western-backed government.He disappeared with his vehicle the night before, and his dismembered body was found the following day.

Local sources reported that, after the body was discovered, the Taliban named him as Hamidullah, a municipality employee, in order to conceal his military background.

On Aug 21 last year, Taliban fighters dragged Abdul Rahman Delawar, the former security commander of Shekhel district, from his home and killed him, according to local media.

Delawar had fled to Iran following the fall of Kabul and had recently returned to his ancestral village where he was living a normal life.

The dossier of 200 Afghans killed since the leak was put together by the independent caseworker – known only as Person A – who first raised the alarm over the data breach.

She sent an email to James Heappey, the Armed Forces minister at the time, in which she warned “how severe the negligence has been in terms of data security”.

She added: “The Taliban may well now have a 33,000-long kill list – essentially provided to them by the UK Government.”

She sent the email on Aug 15 2023, after an anonymous user on Facebook threatened to publish the leaked data.It had been accidentally released 18 months earlier by a British soldier tasked with vetting Afghans seeking asylum under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap).

Person A was subsequently subject to the super-injunction in September 2023, which prevented her – along with newspapers – from even mentioning its existence.

The dossier compiled by Person A and other caseworkers was passed to The Telegraph after the super-injunction was lifted, to serve as a snapshot of Afghans who worked with coalition troops and are believed to have subsequently been targeted by the Taliban.

The identities of those killed were gleaned from posts in local Afghan press and on social media as well as through contacts on the ground. The Telegraph has been unable to verify independently the names contained in the dossier of those killed and the circumstances in which they died.

Person A said Afghans may have applied to the Arap scheme – even if they had not worked with British troops – as a means to securing a safe haven.

But it also means Afghans who had no association with the UK military may have been put in danger simply by applying to the Arap scheme.

Person A said: “The issue we have is we have no way of knowing whether the people in our dossier had applied for the Arap scheme or not. There are an awful lot of people who didn’t comply with Arap but applied through Arap.”

Women forced back to living under the Taliban’s increasingly repressive regime have spoken of their desperation as Iran accelerates the deportation of an estimated 4 million Afghans who had fled to the country.

In the past month alone, more than 250,000 people, including thousands of lone women, have returned to Afghanistan from Iran, according to the UN’s migration agency. The numbers accelerated before Sunday’s deadline set by the Iranian regime for all undocumented Afghans to leave the country.

The Taliban, who returned to power in 2021, have been accused of enforcing a system of gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Women returning to the country must live with oppressive laws that ban them from showing their faces, speaking or appearing in public, as well as being excluded from most jobs and education. Anyone caught breaking these rules faces public flogging.

An employee of the NGO World Vision assists a woman at an office where deported Afghans can call their family members, 3 July, Islam Qala, Afghanistan. Photograph: Elise Blanchard/Getty ImagesSpeaking to the Guardian and Zan Times, an Afghan news agency, at a border crossing in southern Afghanistan, Sahar*, 40, is travelling with five children and says she has no idea where she will live now. A widow originally from Baghlan, a city in northern Afghanistan, she had been living in Iran for more than a decade. She ran a small tailoring workshop and had recently put down a deposit on a home. Last week, she says she was detained, taken with her children from a refugee camp near the southern city of Shiraz, and deported.

“I didn’t even get to pack their clothes. They came in the middle of the night. I begged them to give me just two days to collect my things. But they didn’t listen. They threw us out like garbage.”

Until recently, women were rarely forcibly returned from Iran. Men, often undocumented labourers, were more likely to face arrest and deportation. But Afghan border officials say there has been a recent shift, with at least 100 unaccompanied women deported through a single border point in Nimroz province, in the south of the country, between March and May this year.

Returning to Afghanistan without a male guardian puts women in direct conflict with Taliban law, which prohibits women from travelling alone. Many of those returned from Iran find themselves stranded at the border, unable to continue their journey.

With temperatures now reaching 52C, local officials say that a number of people have died during the forced crossings. Border officials say at least 13 bodies have arrived in the past two weeks, but it was not clear whether they had died of heat and thirst or were killed during Israel’s airstrikes in Iran.

Those arriving at border crossings in southern Afghanistan say they are thirsty, hungry and exhausted, having walked for hours under the sun. Most have no belongings, documentation or plan about where to live.

“From Shiraz to Zahedan [close to the Afghan border], they took everything from us. My bank card had 15 million tomans (£110). They charged 50,000 tomans for a bottle of water, 100,000 for a cold sandwich. And if you didn’t have it, your child went without,” says Sahar.

The Taliban says it offers short-term shelter and transport assistance to women deported without a mahram (an adult male who can accompany her on a journey). But many returnees say they received no such help. Under Taliban policy, most single women are barred from receiving land, travelling alone to their home province, or accessing employment.

Afghans wait for assistance and buses at the Iranian border on 3 July in Islam Qala. Women are unable to continue their journey without a male escort.

Sahar says her options in Afghanistan are bleak. She has an elderly mother in Baghlan, but no home, no job and no husband, meaning, under Taliban rules, she cannot travel alone or work legally. “I asked for land [from the Taliban], anything to start again. They said, ‘You’re a woman, you have no mahram. You don’t qualify.’”Many end up relying on extended family or informal networks. One woman, recently returned with a newborn, says she was denied food and shelter. “They told me: ‘You’re not eligible. You don’t have a man with you.’ But my baby is just four days old. Where am I supposed to go?”

The UN agency, the International Organization for Migration, and other groups provide temporary aid at border crossings, but they do not have the mandate or resources for long-term support.

In the buses taking deportees from detention to the Afghanistan borders, women also say they are subjected to verbal abuse, bribes demanded for basic services and no air conditioning in extreme heat. “They said it’s a waste for you Afghans. My child cried from the heat, but the driver laughed and mocked us,” says Zahra*.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have left Iran over the past weeks since Tehran gave more than four million undocumented Afghan migrants until July 6 to leave the country, the United Nations said, raising alarm over a dire shortage of funding to assist the returnees.

More than 256,000 Afghans returned to their country from Iran in June alone, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The agency said that said the unprecedented surge in repatriations hinders the ability of IOM and partners to provide aid, reaching only 10 percent of those in need.

Iran says it hosts more than 6 million Afghans, many of whom live there without legal status. Many Afghan migrants claim they face regular discrimination in Iran.

Some Iranian media reports indicated that even Afghans with valid visas have been forcibly expelled during the latest wave of deportations.

Iran’s 12-day war with Israel in mid-June has reportedly contributed to the departures, with Iranian state media and social media users claiming that an unspecified number of Afghan nationals were arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

Afghans Detained On Espionage Charges

Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said on X on July 5 that “hundreds” of Afghans and members of other ethnic and religious minorities have been detained and “accused of espionage.”

Bennett also expressed concern over what he described as the “labeling of Afghans [and] minority communities as traitors” by the Iranian media.

Several migrants living in Iran told RFE/RL that Afghan nationals who were detained on spying allegations faced mistreatment in custody and were subsequently deported to Afghanistan despite having valid residency permits and documentation.

RAWA.org: An image of an Afghan migrant family deported from Iran is circulating on social media. Thousands of families in dire conditions are stranded at the Iran-Afghanistan border, awaiting entry into an uncertain fate in Afghanistan.

A young Afghan migrant who lives in Tehran told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that his father was recently detained and mistreated by the Iranian police over a bogus spying allegation.

"My father was arrested and tortured on charges of espionage,” the migrant said on condition of anonymity.

“His feet were tied with chains, and he was not given food or water. He was detained by the Iranian police for several days and later deported to Afghanistan. The situation here for Afghan refugees is very bad,” he added.

The migrant said his visa has recently expired and that he does not go out, fearing that he will be arrested and deported too.

Another Afghan refugee shared similar sentiments, saying “the situation of Afghan refugees has deteriorated further over the past week or two.”

“Even those who have legal status and work live in fear. Most of our friends have been expelled. The situation is very worrying,” he told RFE/RL on July 6.

The IOM and other international organizations, such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) who provide assistance to the returnees, said that many Afghans arrive with “nothing but the clothes on their back” and “in urgent need of food, medical care, and support.”

The IFRC said on July 5 that large groups of Afghans, including many children, were arriving via the Islam Qala border crossing, having endured “exhaustion, hunger, and uncertainty on their journey home,” as temperatures hovered over 43 degrees Celsius.

The IFRC said more than 800,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since January.

Meantime, hundreds of thousands more have arrived from Pakistan, another major host country for Afghan refugees. Pakistan plans to expel 3 million Afghans this year.

The United Nations said last month that at least 1.2 million Afghans have been forced to return from Iran and Pakistan so far this year, sparking a crisis that could potentially destabilize the fragile situation in Afghanistan.

Fresh violence has broken out in Khash district of Badakhshan province, where armed clashes between Taliban forces and local residents have resulted in at least seven deaths and more than 40 injuries, local sources report. Some news outlets have reported that up to 15 people were killed by the Taliban during the crackdown.

The unrest began after Taliban fighters intervened in a funeral ceremony for victims of earlier violence in the area. Residents opposed their presence, triggering violent confrontations. According to health officials at a local hospital 7 people were were killed on Monday, and one more was killed on Tuesday. At least 12 others were wounded in Tuesday’s clashes alone.

In response to growing tensions, the Taliban have reportedly cut telecommunications in the district and deployed special forces via helicopter to suppress further resistance. Taliban-appointed governor of Badakhshan, Mohammad Ayub Khalid, confirmed the casualties, attributing them to "accidental fire" by Taliban fighters.

Locals carry the bodies of those killed in the Taliban’s violent crackdown.

The clashes were reportedly sparked by a Taliban operation aimed at destroying local poppy fields, part of a broader effort to eliminate opium production. But for many in these areas, cultivating poppy is not a choice — it's a means of survival. People are extremely poor, and the Taliban provide no alternative livelihood or support; families are left with no other option but to grow opium in order to feed their children. The killing of farmers during the operation provoked widespread anger, with residents blocking roads to Fayzabad and Baharak and storming the Khash district governor’s office, damaging parts of the building.

This is not the first time such violence has erupted in Badakhshan, a province known for its significant role in Afghanistan’s opium cultivation and trafficking. Similar incidents occurred last year in Jurm district under comparable circumstances.

The current situation in Khash remains highly volatile, with fears mounting among residents over further violence and isolation amid the communications blackout.

Local sources in Helmand say that a 45-year-old man, who already has two other wives, has married a 6-year-old girl.

According to the sources, the girl’s father gave her in marriage to this older man "in exchange for money."

Sources stated that the wedding ceremony between the 45-year-old man and the child took place on Friday, 27th June, 2025.

However, before the child was handed over to her 45-year-old "husband," local Taliban officials stepped in — not to stop the marriage, of course, but to show their version of "restraint." Sources say they told the man to hold off and wait until the girl turns the oh-so-mature age of 9 before taking her to his house.

Child marriage—especially the forced marriage of young girls to much older or middle-aged men—remains one of the most pervasive and culturally embedded forms of gender-based violence across Afghanistan. Since the Taliban's return to power, this practice has surged dramatically, fueled by the regime's ultra-patriarchal policies, the collapse of legal protections, and the deepening economic desperation faced by families. The normalization of such coercive unions under the guise of tradition not only strips girls of their childhood and basic human rights, but also reinforces a broader system of gender oppression that thrives under the Taliban’s rule.

Over the course of six months, photographer Kiana Hayeri and researcher Melissa Cornet created a portrait of the lives of Afghan women under the strict regime of the Taliban. In a country facing one of the most severe women’s rights crises in the world, “No Woman’s Land” captures their struggles, but also shines a light on the subtle yet powerful ways they are resisting—from secret classrooms to moments of quiet togetherness at home. Here, Hayeri tells Phoebe West how the pair approached the project despite the limited access under the Taliban regime, and why resistance is a necessity for the women of Afghanistan.

Over six months, Kiana Hayeri and Melissa Cornet spent 10 weeks across seven provinces, speaking to 100 women and girls about what it means to be a woman in Afghanistan today. “We wanted to cover everything,” Hayeri tells me from Damascus. “We wanted to show what it means to be a woman in rural areas, in urban areas, for educated women, and uneducated, to show what has changed for them, and to look at all sides of the story.” The story of Afghanistan’s history is a long and complex one, full of political instability and a mercurial hold over women’s rights—“every regime has used women as a symbol,” says Hayeri, “either of modernity, or moral purity.”

“I wanted to be very respectful,” Hayeri says. Every image was approached as singular, and created in partnership with the subject, ensuring their safety and agency. “Even if women were not comfortable showing their faces,” Hayeri explains, “they still have individuality in the photos.”

“No Woman’s Land” does not shy away from the darkness that pervades women’s existence in Afghanistan today, but it’s not the whole story either. Joy and hope exist, too, transcending the personal, to embody resistance and defiance within a land of oppression. “I hope it goes on to live as a documentation of what’s happening in Afghanistan,” says Hayeri, “and becomes something that the next generation will build upon—the foundation on which to build resilience and hope. They can look back at this and know what’s possible.

The project is a collaboration between Hayeri and women’s rights researcher Melissa Cornet. The process of working together was clearly revelatory for them both, allowing for creative scope and shared responsibility when it came to decisions surrounding the work. Beyond Hayeri and Cornet, the collaborative roots of the work extend much further. Given how limited access has become in Afghanistan under the Taliban, the space granted to them was thanks to the existence of networks already in place and a reputation within the community: “a lot of the access worked through word of mouth,” Hayeri explains, “so we would tell our network who we were looking to meet with and they would vouch for us.”

Both Hayeri and Cornet lived in Kabul for years, and hold a deep love for Afghanistan, which shines through in the work. They had a scaffold of trusted relationships on which to build, language to communicate without the need for a translator and time to ensure everyone taking part really wanted to be there: “Some of the scenes that you see, they’ve known me for three, four years,” she says, “so they know I wouldn’t do anything to risk their safety—and we had the luxury of time to go back again and again. This doesn’t happen in our field of work anymore.”

Hayeri has made a lot of work in Afghanistan, but this project felt unlike anything before it— “because I was on this grant, I could do whatever I wanted creatively and it was very fulfilling,” she explains. Hayeri says she’s always shot with natural light: “Afghanistan has this warm hue.” But for “No Woman’s Land” she decided to shoot using neon lights. “Afghans love neon lights,” she says, smiling, “you go to ice cream shops, restaurants, anything outdoors—they have neon lights everywhere.”

As they felt the space afforded to women shrink further and further, Hayeri and Cornet decided to “bring the neon lights into their homes and into their spaces.” The decision to bring luminosity into the sanctuaries of these women makes it hard not to think about their skies turning from technicolor to overcast pallor as decades-long progress unraveled within weeks when the Taliban returned to power in the late summer of 2021.

Pasts and futures feel present throughout the work. Various shots within “No Woman’s Land” capture different generations of women—each frame holding multiple cycles of repression and political instability. It is difficult to fathom the expanse of what is newly gone and newly impossible for these girls—for the elders it is history repeating, an echo of a past life, but for the youth—their daughters and granddaughters—it’s fresh, whole futures rubbed out in an instant.

“Resilience is really not a choice,” says Hayeri. “For women, and Afghans generally I would say, it’s a necessity.” It is a great privilege to be able to think of resilience as a choice. Existing within the oppression that has, once again, become the reality for women in Afghanistan, resistance and rebellion exist on a molecular level—it is not taking place on the streets for others to watch, it is happening all the time: dancing behind closed doors, making art and creating henna designs become defiant acts of personhood in the face of erasure.

Making this work would not be possible now—any semblance of access that existed then has been shut down—but the scope of what was created is unbounded. “It’s very easy for people to put the title of gender apartheid on Afghanistan,” reflects Hayeri, “but they don’t talk about the apartheid that is happening in the West Bank. The fight for women’s rights goes beyond just Afghanistan. It goes to Palestine. It goes to America. It goes to Kenya!”

After our conversation, Hayeri is joining the celebrations in Damascus for the 14th anniversary of the Syrian revolution, where military helicopters will drop flowers and confetti—a reminder that proximate to the fragility of women’s rights around the world lies the potential for change, and the possibility for something better.

The body of an 8-year-old girl who had been missing for three days was recovered in the Bhana Mari area here, police informed on Monday.

Police said, the girl’s body was discovered at the home of a neighbor in Lundi Arbab locality, which falls within the jurisdiction of Bhana Mari police station.

The suspect, identified as Altaf, son of Mamoor, has been arrested in connection with the case. The victim’s father had reported her disappearance at Mankrao police post three days ago.

During the investigation, the murdered child’s body was found at the suspect’s residence today. The body was shifted to the hospital for a post-mortem examination. Complete details will be shared once the medical report is received, police said.

The deceased has been identified as an 8-year-old girl, daughter of Ali Muhammad, originally from Afghanistan and currently residing in Lundi Arbab. The suspect is currently being interrogated by police regarding the incident.

Zalala Hashimi, a Pashto singer and finalist in Season 12 of Afghan Star, has been missing for over two weeks in Kabul. Her husband reported that she left home to visit a friend but never returned. Efforts to locate her have failed, and both her friend and family claim no knowledge of her whereabouts.

Zalala, like many other women artists, was forced into silence. Despite having a chance to leave the country, she stayed in Kabul due to her responsibilities as a wife and mother. In Taliban ideology, female performers are viewed with contempt and labeled as immoral—effectively rendering their lives disposable.

A blurry video clip circulating online, allegedly showing Zalala walking and running, is being used by Taliban-affiliated sources to claim she left willingly. However, there is no credible evidence supporting this version, and observers believe it is part of a broader effort to normalize her disappearance and deflect suspicion from those in power.

International institutions such as UNAMA, deeply embedded in Kabul’s political landscape, have responded with nothing more than routine “expressions of concern.” Many Afghans accuse these organizations of complicity, claiming they prioritize backdoor diplomacy with Taliban leaders over the safety and rights of the Afghan people—especially women.

As fear and frustration grow, activists are calling for urgent international pressure and real accountability. Zalala Hashimi’s case is not an isolated one—it is a reflection of the terror imposed on Afghan women under a regime that the world continues to tolerate.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021—installed with the backing of the United States—Afghanistan has become a living hell for women. Under Taliban rule, women have been systematically erased from public life, banned from education, employment, and artistic expression, and subjected to severe restrictions that have pushed many into desperation.

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.

Iranian authorities claim to have arrested a suspect who confessed, but no transparent updates have been given to her family. Security forces even blocked her burial on June 7, adding further pain and silence to the tragedy. Kobra, who some sources say used the pen name “Shaghayegh,” came from a marginalized Afghan refugee background, like many who struggle daily under racism, sexism, and systemic neglect in Iran.

Her killing, gruesome and gendered, did not receive the widespread media coverage that similar cases involving Iranian women often do. When Iranian women such as Mahsa Amini were murdered, their stories sparked international outrage. But in Kobra’s case—despite the brutality—there has been mostly silence. No global headlines. No national mourning. No mass protests. Just a murdered refugee woman, quietly erased.

This contrast speaks volumes about how Afghan refugees, especially women, are dehumanized. Kobra’s murder is not just an isolated act of violence—it is the result of intersecting systems of oppression: patriarchy, racism, and the brutal conditions of statelessness. Her story deserves to be heard, her name remembered, and justice pursued—not just for her, but for all refugee women whose lives are treated as disposable.