What happened in Herat?
Ahmad could not sleep. His 18-year-old sister Somaya had been dragged into a Taliban morality police vehicle and taken to Herat prison. When she came home the morning after her arrest, she could not eat…
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Reports
‘There can be no trace of me’: Afghan women pushed out of media
When officials from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice stopped Kulsum on a street in western Afghanistan, she was not working for a…
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Afghan women: The largest imprisoned population in the world
This year marks the fourth International Women’s Day in which the Taliban have imprisoned Afghan women and girls inside their…
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The Herat massacre in the shadow of the Taliban’s anti-Shia policy
On Friday, April 10, 2026, armed men opened fire on Shia civilians in the village of Dahmiri, in Injil district of Herat province, killing and injuring dozens, according to local…
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Interviews
Interview with Hajar Hussaini, Whiting Award Winner of 2026
Hajar Hussaini is an Afghan poet and translator based in the United States. In 2004, she was 13 when she returned to Kabul with her family from Iran. She lived…
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Narrative
How a letter became a book of Afghan women’s stories for Chinese readers
My name is Anqi. I am an editor at a book publishing company in China and I am writing this piece to explain how a letter became a book, one…
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Arts & Culture
A life as wide as the courtyard: A review of ‘Let Me Write to You’
The story Let Me Write to You by Nahid Mehregan takes place in the city of Herat during the first Taliban rule. The novel narrates the lives of several women…
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