Rukhshana: Taliban forces have detained three employees of Radio Naseem in central Daikundi province and sealed its office closed, according to two local sources.Naseem Radio station was mostly active in the field of health and environment in Daikundi province and had recently published several reports about the situation of women in the province. The three men were also forced to commit to not speak to external media or reporters.      Full news...

Rukhshana: An Afghan women protestor and her adult son have been detained by Taliban forces in a raid on the family home in Qala-e-Fatullah in Kabul. Mrs Parsi is one of the protesting women and a member of the women’s movement called the Spontaneous Women’s Movement in Kabul. She has participated in many demonstrations for women’s rights in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Rukhshana: Fears are growing of the Taliban’s moves to expand extremist religious schools in Afghanistan, with more buildings allegedly being claimed for this purpose.Since taking power in Afghanistan over two years ago, the Taliban have been slowly building more religious schools across the country.Two buildings of the Herat teacher training center were turned into jihadist schools in April. Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, more than four thousand men and women had been studying teaching in the center.      Full news...

Undark Magazine: In April 2017, the U.S. military dropped the most powerful conventional bomb ever used in combat here: the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, known unofficially as the “mother of all bombs,” or MOAB. “All the people living in Asad Khel village became ill after that bomb was dropped,” says Wali, a 27-year-old farmer, pulling up the leg of his shalwar kameez to show me the red bumps stretched across his calves. “I have it all over my body.” He says he got the skin disease from contamination left by the MOAB.      Full news...

Reuters: The United Nations has recorded over 1,600 incidents of rights violations against people detained by the Taliban authorities, nearly half of them acts of torture and ill-treatment mostly by police and intelligence agents, a report released on Wednesday showed. The U.N. Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) said 18 people had also died in prisons and in the custody of police and intelligence in the 19 months ending July 2023.      Full news...

AP: The mental health of Afghan women, who have suffered under harsh measures imposed by the Taliban since taking power two years ago, has deteriorated across the country, according to a joint report from three U.N. agencies released Tuesday. Nearly 70 percent reported that feelings of anxiety, isolation and depression had grown significantly worse between April and June, an increase from 57 percent in the preceding quarter, according to the report from U.N Women, the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.      Full news...

Rukhshana: The Taliban’s Vice and Virtue department in Bamyan released a statement that they had a meeting with local traders and businessmen to inform them that tight and thin clothes are “against Islamic Sharia and Afghan culture” and residents should not use such clothes.Fashion shops in Bamyan province have been told to stop importing short or tight dresses to sell at the market, according to shopkeepers in Bamyan Bazaar.      Full news...

VOA: There has been a “disturbing surge” in the number of female suicides and attempted female suicides in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control in 2021, according to a report by British newspaper The Guardian. The Taliban government has not published any statistics on the phenomenon and has forbidden health care workers from sharing the numbers, the newspaper said. However, the report said health care providers agreed to privately share the information from August 2021 to August 2022 “to highlight an urgent public health crisis” that has made Afghanistan one of the few locations in the world where more women than men kill themselves.      Full news...

HRW: Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution against women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Since taking over the country in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed laws and policies intended to deny women and girls throughout the country their fundamental rights because of their gender.      Full news...

BNN: A young student was killed by Taliban gunfire in Laghman province on August 27, after he attended a wedding party where music was played. The incident occurred in the Qarghayi district of the eastern province, where the Taliban have a strong presence. The victim was identified as Samiullah, a resident of the Chapa Daria area of Qarghayi district. He was a first-year student at the Faculty of Agriculture of Nangarhar University, one of the largest and oldest universities in Afghanistan.      Full news...

BBC: The Taliban government have banned women from visiting the Band-e-Amir national park in Bamiyan province. Afghanistan’s acting minister of virtue and vice, Mohammad Khaled Hanafi, said women had not been observing hijab inside the park. He called on religious clerics and security agencies to forbid women from entering until a solution was found.      Full news...

RFE/RL: Hora Sadat, a prominent female Afghan YouTuber, mysteriously died in Kabul on August 21. Reports suggested the 25-year-old was poisoned after attending a public event. Sadat, who had 300,000 subscribers on YouTube, produced videos on social issues for a mainly young audience. She also participated in public events organized by women in Kabul, although she was not known for publicly criticizing the Taliban.      Full news...

Amu: As per reliable accounts, these women were participating in a protest held at a residence located in Khairkhana area in northern Kabul when the Taliban forces took them into custody.A video obtained by Amu captures the moment when a contingent of Taliban members entered the premises, making efforts to detain the women involved.      Full news...

8am: In a recent and concerning development, Taliban fighters have reportedly detained eight individuals associated with the “Union and Solidarity of Afghan Women” movement following an attack on a gathering of women protesters in Kabul. Sources reveal that the Taliban apprehended these eight individuals within Kabul city and have taken them into custody. The incident unfolded on Sunday, August 20th, when Taliban fighters executed the arrests from a confined location in the Khairkhana district of Kabul.      Full news...

RAWANews: On the 15th August, two terrible years have passed when, according to the plans of the US and NATO, the brutal and misogynist creatures named Taliban, were replaced with the "republican" brothers and took the responsibility for the advancement of the United States colonial policies in our homeland; Two years that brought nothing but the collapse of the last manifestations of freedom, humanity and knowledge, poverty and cruelty for the people and especially the women of Afghanistan...      Full news...

VOA:The Taliban on Wednesday banned all political parties in Afghanistan, stating that such activities are against Islamic law, or Sharia. More than 70 major and small political parties were formally registered with the Ministry of Justice until two years ago, when the then-insurgent Taliban reclaimed control of war-ravaged Afghanistan. Many self-exiled Afghan political leaders have since opposed the new rulers in Kabul and called for armed resistance to dislodge them, but they have not received international backing for their campaign.      Full news...

The Guardian: Shima Forugh* was in 10th grade at school when she decided she would join the Afghan army. It had been taboo in Afghanistan’s patriarchal society for women to join the military, but hundreds of women like Forugh broke through this restriction.When she was 21, she joined the 207th Zafar army corps in Herat. Her father, who was also a member of the Afghan army, and mother both supported her decision to sign up.      Full news...

Afghanistan International: On Saturday, two groups of women held demonstrations in Kabul and Takhar against the "tyrannical policies of the Taliban".Sources from Kabul told Afghanistan International that the Taliban had been aware of the women’s demonstration in Kabul and still attacked the demonstrators.However, Afghanistan International received images from the protest site which showed that the female protesters had changed the location of the demonstration and read their resolution in a different area.      Full news...

Classic FM: Photos have emerged from Afghanistan of musical instruments being set on fire by the Taliban as a spokesperson for the ruling government describes music as “immoral”. One photo showing four men watching a large pile of instruments engulfed by flames was released to the press by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice on Sunday and was reportedly taken in Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city.      Full news...

BBC News: The Taliban have burned musical instruments in Afghanistan, claiming music “causes moral corruption”. Thousands of dollars worth of musical equipment went up in smoke on a bonfire on Saturday in western Herat province. Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban have imposed numerous restrictions, including on playing music in public. All forms of music were banned from social gatherings, TV, and radio while the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan from the mid-90s until 2001.      Full news...

WION: Gen-Z, their predecessor millennials and even the people from Gen-X often take to social media when they are behind or near the wheel, to show a fleeting world in front of the car's windshield sometimes accompanied by a particular music track.For Zareena, 24, who last year lost her right to attend university in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan's capital Kabul, a behind-the-steering-wheel Snapchat update while she was on Kabul's roads was a part of her life until August 2021. Not anymore.      Full news...

NBC News: Dozens of Afghan women protested a beauty salon ban Wednesday after the Taliban ordered their closure nationwide. Security forces used fire hoses and stun guns and shot their weapons into the air to break up the protest.The Taliban said this month they were giving all salons in Afghanistan one month to wind down their businesses and close shop, drawing concern from international officials worried about the impact on female entrepreneurs. The Taliban say they are outlawing salons because they offer services forbidden by Islam and cause economic hardship for grooms’ families during wedding festivities.      Full news...

Zan Times: Zarifa Ghafari had arguably one of the toughest jobs in the world: being a female mayor in Afghanistan. But, aside from that political role, Zan Times discovered that some of Ghafari’s claims about her life, education, and experiences contained contradictions and inconsistencies. Zan Times discovered that even basic information, such as her place of birth, is inconsistent across the media. According to her memoir, she was born in Kabul. A piece published by Vanity Fair in March 2023 reports that she was born in Paktia province. However, back in 2018, she told Afghanistan’s EtilaatRoz that she was “born in Maidan Wardak.”      Full news...

UNICEF: An estimated 3.7 million children are out-of-school in Afghanistan. 60 per cent of girls and 46 per cent of boys of primary school age are currently not attending any level of education in Afghanistan. Even when children are enrolled in school, they are not always learning. Years of previous conflict, coupled with poor infrastructure, have made some schools unsafe for children. Many public schools lack adequate classrooms, qualified teachers, school supplies, and places where children can wash their hands.      Full news...

The Washington Post: Afghanistan’s primary mental health facility in Kabul has filled with patients who say they are experiencing a different kind of suffering, he said. With the Taliban leadership severely restricting female education and work, there are mounting concerns about the mental health of girls and women. The restrictions and “sudden changes,” said Azim, appear to be at the root of the trauma suffered by most women and girls now seeking help at this hospital.      Full news...

Foreign Policy: For the Taliban, who’ve made so much money from other illicit trades, arms deals are just another source of income: The Taliban likely control and tax the new black market, said Asfandyar Mir, a South Asia expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. And as the Taliban (and allied terrorist groups) seek new recruits, few things talk more eloquently than fancy, deadly kit. Left-behind American assault rifles command a premium: an M4 in good condition can fetch up to $2,400, a status symbol with as much cachet in the Himalayan tribal belt as a luxury handbag in Manhattan.      Full news...

The Guardian: The Taliban administration in Afghanistan has ordered beauty salons to close within a month, the morality ministry said, in the latest shrinking of access to public places for Afghan women. “The deadline for the closing of beauty parlours for women is one month,” Mohammad Sadiq Akif, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue, said on Tuesday, referring to a ministry notice.      Full news...

EFE: Without a husband or grown-up sons to go out and earn in a highly orthodox and patriarchal Islamist society, widows in Afghanistan are left in a lurch, condemned to poverty on account of increasing restrictions on women by the Taliban. Fatima is the oldest of four widows in a 100 square meter house in the northern state of Kandahar, a few meters from the office of the provincial governor. The other three are her 25- and 30-year-old daughters-in-law – each with four children – and her niece, who has one child.      Full news...

Afghanistan International: The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a new report that there are increasing signs of large methamphetamine manufacture in Afghanistan and expanded trafficking through South Asia for global markets. The World Drug Report 2023 also stated in the report that the bulk of global illicit opium production continues to take place in Afghanistan, wherein in 2022, production reached 6,200 tonnes, equivalent to 80% of the estimated global production.      Full news...

Tortoise media: Afghan women working for the UN in Kabul say they have been betrayed by the organisation’s failure to protect them from the Taliban’s gender apartheid. Also in today’s Sensemaker: why an opposition win in Thailand isn’t quite a win.      Full news...