The Afghanistan Media Support Organization (AMSO) says five years of Taliban rule have severely restricted Afghanistan’s media environment, and more than 80 per cent of female journalists have left formal media work.

I was a journalist. I lived through words and used my camera and pen to tell the stories of my people’s pain. But a day came when I became one of those people whose pain I was supposed to write about.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says women do not report abuse by Taliban forces because of fear of threats and retaliation, as well as distrust in Taliban institutions.

Local sources in Herat report that a young man named Mohammad Noman, son of Abdul Rahman Moradi and a member of the family of Haji Arbab Shir Khan Alizai, a former member of the Herat Provincial Council, has been killed near the Taliban police headquarters in the province.