RFE/RL's Radio Azadi is one of the most popular and trusted media outlets in Afghanistan. Nearly half of the country's adult audience accesses Azadi's reporting on a weekly basis.
Before Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Sardar Mohammad provided for his family by playing the harmonium. Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, playing and listening to music has been banned, with sermons or Koran readings replacing the melodies once heard at weddings.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government said an attack on a hotel building in Kabul on December 12 ended with the killing of three attackers.
Zarifa Yaqobi, a women's rights activist who is a member of the Afghan Women's Movement for Equality, has been released from prison in Afghanistan.
Thousands of scorpions swarm under the rocks of Mohammad Sherzad's "farm" north of Kabul. Scorpion venom can be used in various medical products and is the most expensive liquid in the world.
In a call-in program broadcast by RFE/RL's Radio Azadi, Masooda Khurram Wardak, a school principal in Kabul, urged authorities to "let girls get an education so they are not left behind in this world."
Twenty-seven people have been lashed in public in the northern Afghan province of Parwan as punishment for alleged adultery, theft, drug offenses, and other crimes.
Afghans are preparing for another brutal winter under the rule of the Taliban. Aid groups fear that this winter could be even worse than the last as hunger and disease continue to rise.
Afghanistan's Taliban administration has carried out the death penalty of a man convicted of murder in the country's first public execution since the militants retook power in August last year.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) warned on December 6 that it could stop working with Afghanistan if women are not allowed to play sports under Taliban rule.
Officials at a hospital in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar say they're seeing a sharp rise in malnutrition among children, with 240 children hospitalized there in November. The United Nations estimates that 875,000 Afghan children are currently at risk of severe acute malnutrition.
At least five people were killed on December 6 in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted a vehicle carrying oil workers in northern Afghanistan, police said.
Unidentified militants tried to storm the headquarters of the Afghan party Hizb-e Islami headed by veteran politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the party said in a statement.
Women who served as soldiers or civilian employees with the Afghan National Security Forces say they no longer have the money to feed their families after losing their jobs when the Taliban retook power in August 2021.
Forced and early marriages of teenage girls have increased across Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power and promptly closed secondary schools 15 months ago. Many parents marry off their adolescent daughters to avoid forced marriages to Taliban members.
The Taliban has cut off broadcasts by U.S.-funded media outlets including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, citing complaints about content.
At least 10 students have been killed in a bombing at a religious school in Afghanistan's northern city of Aybak.
Rashid, 13, lost both his legs in an accident involving an unexploded shell in the Khogyani district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province. His six siblings were also injured. The Taliban says more than 120 people a month are killed or maimed in accidents involving unexploded ordinance.
Lima, aged 14, is paralyzed and unable to speak after contracting polio as a younger child. Her family say she was never vaccinated. The Taliban, which banned inoculation campaigns in areas of Afghanistan under its control prior to retaking power in 2021, now says it supports vaccination efforts.
A group of women and girls have been holding secret taekwondo sessions in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021, has banned women from participating in sports and from exercising in public.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has urged the de facto leadership of that country to "take immediate steps to end violence against women and the broader deterioration of women's rights as a vital part of efforts to establish a meaningful and sustainable peace."
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