The recent massacre of Shia civilians in Herat is the latest tragedy exposing the reality of security under the Taliban.
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Another unwritten rule seems to be taking hold: the quiet prohibition of women’s presence in nature. Women are not allowed to set foot in public recreational spaces, especially those tied to nature.
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Writing allows a person to feel their own human worth. Despite all the political or familial violence around them, when someone writes, they come to see that their pain is connected to a broader human experience. It is a shared human pain.

Read the full interview: zantimes.com/2026/04/16/i...

Afghanistan is facing a severe climate crisis, with floods and out-of-season snow destroying crops, homes, and livelihoods, while unqualified Taliban agencies who view extreme weather as "divine fate," leaving desperate communities to fend for themselves.
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Sonia was studying for her Master’s and working two jobs—until she was suddenly deported to Afghanistan. Now she lives in a tent, with no right to study or work.
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Monitoring the length of students’ beards, enforcing specific haircuts, mandating traditional dress, and banning music.. These measures effectively shift universities away from academic spaces into Deobandi-style religious seminaries.
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"I screamed at them that my children are at school, but they said: ‘Don’t worry about your children, go back to your country.’"
Freshta was deported from Pakistan in Jan. She is now stranded in a tent, 12km from the border, with no idea where her sons are.
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The Kabul Slaughter YouTube video by Zan Times

What responsibility do the Taliban bear for the deaths of people who were held inside Omid rehabilitation centre and had no way to escape?
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When Pakistan bombed a Kabul rehab centre, the Taliban’s policy of locking patients turned a strike into a mass murder.
This story is published in collaboration with @equatormag.bsky.social
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From a sudden police raid in Islamabad to a life of fear and erasure in Kabul. Read the account of Nazanin, an Afghan woman journalist whose life was upended by forced deportation.
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While the United Nations emphasizes gender equality and the role of women and girls in water resource management, women in Afghanistan are deprived of many of their fundamental rights, including access to safe drinking water.
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"Until freedom and for as long as I am alive, I will remain in this struggle." Hamasa endured beatings, the loss of her unborn child, and forced displacement, yet her fight against the Taliban continues.
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Rather than weakening the regime in Kabul, Pakistan’s aggression is fueling Afghan nationalist sentiment, effectively granting them a level of popular legitimacy they have long struggled to secure.
zantimes.com/2026/03/19/p...

A call to international editors from Zan Times

As the Pakistan-Taliban border conflict escalates, Afghan civilians are paying the ultimate price. At least 56 people including 24 children, have been killed, and over 114,000 displaced.
zantimes.com/2026/03/12/c...

Surviving Taliban prison: Zarmina Paryani, from religious student to anti-Taliban activist YouTube video by Zan Times

For protesting the Taliban's anti-women policies, Zarmina Paryani and her sisters faced a brutal night raid and imprisonment. Even in exile, the threats continue. Watch her story of survival and the fight for Afghan women's rights.
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As the Taliban enforces more severe moral policing and hijab standards in Herat and other provinces, women in Afghanistan speak of escalating public terror and coercion.
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Despite all the fear and terror, I continue. I continue because I know this is my responsibility: to carry the voices of women whose most basic rights to live have been taken from them. For many of these women, being heard is the only comfort they have.
zantimes.com/2026/03/08/l...

International Women’s Day is often framed as celebration. In reality, March 8 is a reminder that rights are never permanently secured. They are defended across generations, and they can be dismantled decree by decree.
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Julia Parsi was among the first women activists who took to the streets after the fall of Kabul to protest the Taliban’s anti-women policies.
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Margaret Atwood’s message to Afghan women

‘Now they only deport’: Afghans trapped in Pakistan arrested and sent back after ‘open war’ breaks out
This report has been published in partnership with the Guardian
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