Taliban Forces Kill Two at Herat Protest Over Detained Women

Men from Afghanistan’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice seized women from streets, markets, and cars in Herat on Saturday. They judged the cut of a veil and pulled people away. By the time the UN mission raised the alarm, around 30 women and girls had been taken, as many as 35 in a single day at three locations across the city.

Among those detained was a pregnant woman who was moved to a provincial prison, according to sources who tracked the arrests. Many of the others vanished into vans, driven to places their families still cannot name. On Tuesday, between one and two hundred residents of Herat gathered to demand the return of the detained women and girls.

Taliban forces fired live ammunition into the protest crowd. At least two people were killed: one woman and one 12-year-old child, according to medical sources. Dozens more were wounded by gunfire. A doctor at a Herat hospital confirmed that gunshot patients were brought in after the protest.

The Taliban instructed all medical centres in Herat not to treat the injured from the Tuesday protest. Richard Bennett, UN special rapporteur for Afghanistan, stated he was “alarmed by the excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters”. Girls in Afghanistan have been locked out of classrooms for five years.