UN raises alarm on Taliban crackdown on dissent, journalists

The United Nations on Friday sounded the alarm over Taliban crackdowns on peaceful protests, many of them by women demanding equal rights, and journalists covering such events.

In one case, two Afghan video journalists were beaten with iron rods.

Tagi Daryabi said he and a colleague were covering a protest earlier this week by women demanding their rights from Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers. Taliban fighters stopped the two journalists, bound their hands and dragged them away to a police station in Kabul’s District Three.

The 22-year-old photographer told The Associated Press that the first thing he heard in the station were screams from a nearby room. Several fighters then began beating him and his colleague, 28-year-old Neamatullah Naqdi.

At one point, Daryabi said he was beaten non-stop for 10 minutes. “I couldn’t think. I didn’t know if I would be killed or if I would live,” he said, his face and body still bearing the scars.