Taliban forces severely beat a woman at a roadside checkpoint in Badakhshan province on Sunday, in yet another shocking display of the regime’s violence and deepening repression of Afghan women. Local sources told that the incident occurred on the Badakhshan–Takhar road, when Taliban fighters stopped a family car and subjected its passengers to a search. During the body search, Taliban officers reportedly ordered the women to remove their veils. When one of the women resisted the demand, she was savagely assaulted by the fighters on the spot.
The woman sustained serious injuries and was rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Photos obtained from the scene show visible bruises and wounds across her body, underscoring the brutality of the attack. Since retaking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on Afghan women and girls banning them from education, employment, and public life measures which United Nations experts have classified as “gender apartheid.” The latest incident adds to a long list of violent abuses that reveal the regime’s determination to enforce submission through fear and force.
The Afghan Women’s Justice Movement strongly condemned the assault, declaring that the Taliban are not only stripping women of their most basic freedoms but also using physical and psychological violence to crush any form of dissent. The movement stressed that such actions represent a blatant violation of fundamental human rights and international law.
Human rights advocates have warned that the Taliban’s treatment of women amounts to one of the gravest crises of oppression in the world today. With every such incident, the gulf between the Taliban’s promises of moderation and their violent practices grows wider, leaving Afghan women trapped under a regime that sees their silence and subjugation as the only acceptable way of life.
Analysts note that as long as the Taliban continue to rely on violence and intimidation to govern, Afghanistan’s women and indeed its society at large will remain hostage to a system rooted in coercion rather than justice.
