Browsing Category
Home
First, the Taliban ordered female tailors not to interact with men. Now, they can’t touch men’s…
Masouma opened her tailoring workshop in the centre of Nili city just six years ago, investing 70,000 afghanis into the business. She had big dreams. However, Masouma says all of her efforts have been wasted since the Taliban takeover of…
Torture and bodies dumped in the street: A Zan Times investigation into the Taliban crackdown of…
A police vehicle stopped in a shopping area in the Chah-Baba neighbourhood of Mazar-e-Sharif on March 3. Five Taliban gunmen got out of the car and dropped two bodies wrapped in black cloth on the road. “Control your women or else this will…
Woman protesters in Taliban and family prisons
Until nine months ago, Nisa Rahimi* had what she calls a normal life, including a career in a private company. But after the Taliban took over Afghanistan and began imposing restrictions on women and girls, the 23-year-old felt she had no…
Children as young as 7 forced to marry Taliban members
Shazia* is seven years old, the age when Afghan children start school. But an education isn’t an option for Shazia, who lives in Kandahar city, the spiritual home of the Taliban. A month ago, her father forced her to marry a 22-year-old…
100-plus television stations shut down during past year
Ahead of this year’s World Television Day on November 21, Nai Supporting Open Media, a media advocacy group in Afghanistan, reveals that more than 100 television networks have stopped operating in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover of…
Small hands and big responsibilities: child labour in Jawzjan’s clay kilns
Shagoufa* is a 10-year-old child who carries adult responsibilities on her small shoulders. She works with her father and two younger brothers in one of the clay kilns. Even her youngest brother, 5-year-old, makes bricks. Though they are…
How to survive in a hungry nation: collecting grains that fall out of food aid sacks
Sharifa, 8, sits in front of the World Food Programme’s office in Kandahar every day, waiting for the UN agency to distribute food. When it begins, she moves forward, but not to place an official handout in her white sack. Sharifa is there…
They were about to write their final exams and graduate. Then the Taliban banned them.
Everything was fine until 10 minutes before 9 p.m on Tuesday, December 20. Shabana* and her mother were having tea at home when Ahmad, Shabana’s older brother, returned from prayers at the mosque with a troubled face, obviously trying to…
Pakistan’s missing India policy: Between a rock and a hard bilateral place
Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto’s biting words to his Indian counterpart on the sidelines of a UN meeting in New York last week came when he was asked to respond to India’s repeated labelling of Pakistan as “the host of Osama bin…
Importance of a Strong Opposition
In the November 20 elections to the House of Representatives (HoR) and Provincial Assemblies (PA), Nepalis selected a set of old but experienced, together with a completely new and fresh, representatives. The elected parliamentarians and…