Human Rights Activists Union: Taliban Mislead Foreign Tourists with False Propaganda and Lead Them to Prison

Nava Jamshidi

The Human Rights Activists Union, in an investigative report published today, Thursday (September 25), has warned that the Taliban, through propaganda exploitation of the tourism industry, are seeking to create a false image of security in Afghanistan, while evidence shows that the country has become one of the most dangerous destinations in the world for foreign tourists.

This union says the Taliban, by inviting YouTubers and foreign tourists, try to portray safe conditions, but at least six documented cases of tourists’ arrests during the past four years, including instances with threats of execution and long-term imprisonment, reveal the bitter reality of Afghanistan.

Among these examples, the seven-month detention of the British couple Peter and Barbara Reynolds in Bamyan and their imprisonment under inhuman conditions, including windowless underground cells, is one of the prominent cases. Kevin Curtis, an American tourist, was also arrested by the Taliban in 2022 while visiting Kabul and described their prison conditions as “inhuman.” In addition, Matthew Hahn and Miles Routledge, two British YouTubers, were separately arrested in 2023 and released after weeks and months of imprisonment.

According to the Human Rights Activists Union, these arrests are usually carried out without any legal reason and are accompanied by threats, psychological torture, and inhuman conditions in prisons. Estimates indicate that between 2021 and September 2025, at least 10 to 30 foreign tourists may have been arrested or disappeared in Afghanistan.

The report adds that the Taliban, through severe media repression and restrictions on reporting, prevent the full release of figures, and the actual number of victims is likely much higher than the documented cases.

The Human Rights Activists Union emphasize that Taliban propaganda is in clear contradiction with the reality on the ground and that traveling to Afghanistan can put the lives of tourists at risk. According to this union, world countries must issue serious warnings about traveling to Afghanistan and hold the Taliban accountable as human rights violators in the matter of arbitrary arrests.

This report comes at a time when the Taliban, since their return to power in August 2021, have tried to use the presence of foreign tourists for propaganda purposes to display a positive image of themselves, an act that civil activists call “dangerous deception” and “a cover-up of the group’s systematic crimes.”