Human Rights Watch has said that since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, they have carried out an unprecedented crackdown on press freedom and have nearly eliminated women’s presence in the media.

After the government announced that women and girls must stay at home, banning them from school, university, and work, Raihan and her friends suffered a severe psychological blow. They were mentally and emotionally shattered. They had never imagined such a day would come. Dreams that remained only dreams, and hands that never reached them.

Amid the Taliban’s sweeping restrictions that have severely limited the work of women journalists across Afghanistan, a new radio station called (Nawai Zan) has begun broadcasting in Herat, focusing exclusively on the work of female reporters.

Bashir Hotak, a 23-year-old Afghan asylum seeker in the United Kingdom, appeared in court on Tuesday charged with sexual assault and assault against a woman in London. He is accused of attacking and sexually assaulting a woman on 29 June this year at a bar in the West End area of London.