At least 10 journalists were killed in Afghanistan in the first half of 2017, a 35 percent surge from last year, a media watchdog said Tuesday, with rampant violence on the rise in the war-torn country. Taliban militants and the Islamic State group were behind most of the “direct and indirect” attacks on media workers … Read more
Kabul police said Monday they were investigating a “terrorist” attack on an international guest house that left a German aid worker and an Afghan guard dead and a Finnish woman kidnapped. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the raid by gunmen late Saturday on the guest house run by Swedish charity Operation Mercy … Read more
Smokey-eyed Zulala Hashemi, standing tall in four-inch gold heels, wants to sing for women. The 18-year-old has become the first girl to reach the final of popular television music talent show Afghan Star. Hashemi, a native of eastern Jalalabad — a stronghold of Taliban and Islamic State insurgents — will face off against the first … Read more
Reporters Without Borders on Tuesday launched a centre to protect women journalists in Afghanistan, the second most dangerous in the country for the profession after Syria. The centre will aim to lobby the government for better working conditions and rights for women reporters. It will also talk to families to try to change perceptions that … Read more
A 23-year-old Afghan woman has described to the BBC how her husband tied her up and cut off both her ears in a domestic violence attack in the northern province of Balkh. The woman – Zarina – is now in a stable but traumatised condition in hospital. “I haven’t committed any sin,” she said. “I … Read more