The Canberra Times: FOR once and it will only be once I was relieved to see women fully covered in burqas. With no eyes, no face and no body, they were rendered invisible as people. No longer individuals, they instead looked like a pack of walking blue tents. And that's just as well.      Full news...

Reuters: Thirteen people were killed and 35 wounded in Afghanistan on Monday when police opened fire to break up a violent protest against a provincial governor, witnesses said.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Hundreds of Badghis people staged a protest demonstration demanding removal of the provincial Governor Muhammad Nasim Tokhi. The protestors alleged the governor was involved in corruption and misuse of authority. They say the pace of reconstruction has also slowed down since his appointment as governor of the province.      Full news...

DAWN: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) Saturday took out a protest rally and staged a sit-in in front of the UN offices to observe as Black Day the coming into power of Jehadi groups in Kabul.      Full news...

Reuters via ABC News: Thousands of people, some shouting "Death to America" and carrying shrouded bodies, protested in the east of Afghanistan on Sunday after up to six people were killed during a raid by US-led coalition forces.      Full news...

Reuters: Afghanistan's attorney-general, accused by critics of regularly breaking the law, has raided Tolo television, one of the country's most popular stations, over a news item, the broadcaster said on Wednesday.      Full news...

IWPR: President Karzai may have helped save the Prodi government by trading Taliban prisoners for an Italian hostage, but in the process, he has damaged his own credibility at home.      Full news...

ABC Radio Australia: A majority of the Afghan people initially welcomed the foreign troops because they saw that as the best way to free themselves from the medievelist rule of the Taliban. But I think over a period of time neither security has been really delivered, nor reconstruction to the extent that was really desirable. And as a result of that, a great majority of the Afghan people have not really profited from the presence of the foreign troops to the extent that they had expected. And as a consequence I think quite a number of Afghans have now turned not only against the Karzai government, but also its international backers.      Full news...

The Daily Telegraph: MALALAI Joya says her mother worries about her - particularly when she travels to foreign countries. But when you consider that the 28-year-old youngest member of the Afghan Parliament has survived four assassination attempts in her own country, you would think her trips abroad would come as a welcome relief to her mum.      Full news...

The Guardian: U.S. Marines fleeing a militant ambush Sunday opened fire on civilian cars and pedestrians on a busy highway in eastern Afghanistan, wounded Afghans said. Up to 16 people were killed and 34 wounded in the violence, officials said.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Hundreds of the protesters, mainly mechanics, flooded to the streets in Lashkargah capital of southern province of Helmand to complain ill-treatment and torture by local policemen.      Full news...

The Age: Old men, some with tears streaming down their faces, were guided to their places. In silence they sat cross-legged while the haunting falsetto chants issuing from a PA system reverberated off the rubble that once was their homes, shops and offices in the foothills of Kabul's south-side.      Full news...

Institute for War & Peace Reporting: Forgive and forget may be a noble aspiration, but it is not playing well in Afghanistan today. A wide spectrum of public opinion, both at home and abroad, has weighed in against a parliamentary resolution passed on January 31, which would grant blanket immunity for war crimes.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: A police officer and a civilian were killed in a violent protest demonstration staged by auto-rickshaw owners in the western city of Herat against local authorities Monday morning.      Full news...

The Independent: The proposed legislation has been criticised by the country's human rights watchdog and Malalai Joya, one of the few MPs who did not approve the bill, describing it as being tantamount to "forgiving national traitors".      Full news...

Reuters: Scores of people protested in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday over the killing of two civilians and the arrest of three by U.S.-led troops, officials and witnesses said.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News - JAWZJAN CITY: About 400 residents of the northern Jawzjan province Thursday in a protest rally urged Juma Khan Hamdard to quit his position as governor. The locals accused Hamdard as inefficient, his links with Hezb-i-Islami, involvement in smuggling and weak management.      Full news...

BBC (Persian Services): According to a report from the Northern Province of Takhar, tens of people staged a demonstration to protest rape of a girl by police in the Dasht-e-Qala district of this province. Also it is reported that selling of women has become very common in Faryab province in north of Afghanistan and each woman is sold up to 50,000 Afghanis (around US$1,000).      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Thousands of people on Monday staged a protest demonstration against the presence of armed commanders in the northern Takhar province.      Full news...

Pajhwok Afghan News: Three staffers working with a private television channel were beaten by armed men while covering a demonstration against former Mujahideen leader and current Member of Parliament Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf in Paghman district of Kabul on Saturday.      Full news...

RAWA: On 1st July 2006, hundreds of people from the Paghman district of Kabul demonstrated against Rasul Sayyaf, a fundamentalist leader of the Itehad-e-Islami party and a current member of the Afghan parliament. The protesters accused Sayyaf and his armed militia of extorting their lands and imposing crimes against them.      Full news...

Institute for War & Peace Reporting: Corruption is a growth industry for Afghanistan's police. They stand accused of extorting money from drug smugglers, gun runners, brothel owners and gamblers, in return for looking the other way. Those who refuse to pay can be arrested as part of an apparently virtuous clean-up campaign, and then released once they hand over the cash.      Full news...

AP via Toronto Sun: Violent anti-foreigner protests raged across Afghanistan's capital yesterday after a U.S. military truck crashed into traffic, touching off the worst rioting since the Taliban's ouster.      Full news...

RAWA: On April 18th 2006, hundreds of people in the Takhar province of northern Afghanistan staged a demonstration to raise their voices against the brutalities of the war- and drug-lords whose presence has become a dominating factor in their homeland.      Full news...

The Times: BOTTLES were thrown, insults traded and chairs knocked over in the bedlam. This was no bar-room brawl, however. It was the scene in the Afghan parliament on Sunday when a woman MP dared to stand up to a male colleague.      Full news...