Hundreds of Afghan protesters call on the Taliban to stop the killings

Hundreds of Afghan protesters have taken to the streets calling for an end to extrajudicial killings allegedly being carried out by the Taliban in Panjshir province, one of the main pockets that tried to resist the Taliban insurgency until its final takeover last September.

According to the protesters, the Taliban regime allegedly killed a person whom the insurgents claim belonged to the National Resistance Front, an alliance of forces opposed to the Taliban regime. However, in these protests the demonstrators deny that there is any such link and demand an end to the extrajudicial killings.

According to a source, "the demonstrators brought the body to the provincial capital of Panjshir and were growing in number", and the Taliban are said to be "committed" to investigating what happened in order to calm the civilian protests, a source told EFE.

This demonstration is the first major Panjshir protest since the Taliban took over the valley, a historic event as the region managed to establish itself as a hotbed of resistance against the Taliban during the 1990s. After its fall, the resistance had to flee to Tajikistan, which has become the main refuge of the National Resistance Front leaders.

During the seizure of Panjshir province, human rights organisations such as Amnesty International claim that the Taliban committed multiple war crimes. They also indicate that the Taliban allegedly tortured and killed ethnic minorities, supporters of the former Afghan government and members of the security forces. 

Along these lines, the UN denounces that in just one week the Taliban regime has murdered at least 72 people who were allegedly members of the former Ghani government, thus ignoring "the amnesty" that they had promised to respect against former officials. Moreover, the international body has denounced the "brutal methods" of torture and execution that the Taliban are alleged to have committed, including the public display of corpses.

Since the Taliban have been in power, the regression, the curtailment of individual freedoms and the violations of human rights have been more than remarkable. In this sense, the media have suffered a serious deterioration that directly threatens freedom of information and expression.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 43% of the Afghan media have closed down, resulting in the dismissal of 60% of journalists.In addition, the constant attacks on women's freedom have directly affected women journalists as 84% of them have lost their jobs, meaning that four out of five have lost their jobs.

Furthermore, in 15 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces there are no women journalists working at all. A clear example is the province of Jowzjan, which before the arrival of the insurgents had 19 operational media outlets with 112 women employees. Now there are no women working in these media.

The Taliban have imposed local conditions on each province including not employing any female journalists. In the capital, of the 1,190 women working as journalists before the arrival of the Taliban, only 320 women are working, a drop of at least 73%. 

These measures have also had significant economic consequences. In this respect, media owners were receiving both national and international funding which came to an end after the arrival of the Taliban. In addition, advertising revenues have been hit hard and many media outlets have been forced to close down. 

All these developments are part of a very delicate situation for Afghanistan, which is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe caused by both violence and economic collapse, which, according to the UN, could lead to the death of a million children in the first months of 2022.