The Taliban’s torture, beatings, humiliation, and public degradation of citizens show no signs of stopping. In recent days, at least three videos have spread widely across social media, each showing a woman, a child, and a young man being tortured in public by Taliban fighters. After the videos surfaced, several citizens said that fear and violence now define streets that should be safe for ordinary movement. They noted that the videos emerging one after another capture only a sliver of the Taliban’s violence against the population, the portion that happens to be filmed and shared. They stressed that such scenes play out every day on streets across the country. In their view, the people have no voice while the Taliban press on with suppression and torture at full force.
As the pattern of street-level abuse continues, more footage has emerged showing Taliban fighters beating women, children, and men, drawing widespread condemnation. The videos show individuals being humiliated, insulted, and physically tortured in front of bystanders, some with their hands already bound.
In one clip circulating widely, a Taliban fighter is seen attacking a child on a bicycle. He drives the barrel of his rifle into the child’s chest, then kicks him in the stomach and face. The fighter then knocks the child to the ground a second time, stomps on him, and resumes striking him with the rifle barrel. Sources say the footage was recorded in the Taimani neighborhood of Kabul.
In a second video, a young man is violently forced to the ground by Taliban fighters. His hands are tied behind his back, and he is loaded onto a motorcycle and driven away.
A third video, also spreading rapidly on social media, shows a woman being beaten by Taliban Morality Police. A female Taliban officer is seen slamming the woman’s head against a vehicle. Sources say this incident also took place in Taimani and that the Taliban Morality Police regularly harass women on the streets.
An earlier video, filmed in the Jibrail neighborhood of Herat, showed Taliban Morality Police and fighters torturing a young man with his hands bound, in plain view of his mother and other residents. Fighters can be seen repeatedly punching and kicking him in the head and face. The group then coerced him into a recorded confession, which they subsequently published.
Citizens resharing the videos on social media have said the Taliban’s cruelty is unfolding in broad daylight. They say the group has not only failed to change but has grown more brutal.
Sanam Kabiri, a women’s rights activist, wrote: “The oppression and violence of the Taliban terrorist group knows no end.” Sharing one of the videos, she added: “In this footage, you see a young man being brutally tortured with a weapon by Taliban members. This group’s nature is nothing but killing, oppression, and violence. What appears here is one example, while thousands of similar cases occur against the people of Afghanistan every single day.”
Mojeeb Karimi, another user, wrote: “Every day, the Taliban beat, humiliate, and detain hundreds of our countrymen. The videos published over the past few days make plain what the people of Afghanistan are enduring and how helpless they have become in the face of this oppression. It reflects a suffocating atmosphere of fear and systematic pressure bearing down on daily life across the country.” He added that the footage offers only a glimpse of a bitter reality that thousands of families live with every day, and that basic human dignity and the most fundamental rights of citizens are being disregarded entirely.
A user named Sahar wrote: “Let those living comfortably in the West, while lobbying for these terrorists,s take a good look. You are supporting these people so they can humiliate and torture the young. I know conscience means nothing to you; you would not be enabling them. I hope that one day each of you is held to account.”
Previously, some women protesters detained by the Taliban confirmed in interviews with the Hasht-e Subh Daily that the group subjected them to coerced confessions and degrading treatment behind bars. They also confirmed being threatened with death, stoning, execution, and reprisals against their families.
The United Nations (UN) has, in numerous reports, expressed alarm over the Taliban’s sweeping violations of human rights in Afghanistan. The UN has said the Taliban continue to impose cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishments and carry out extrajudicial killings of accused individuals. One report found that arrests were frequently made without any legal process and were accompanied, in many cases, by mistreatment.
Amnesty International (AI) has similarly documented widespread human rights abuses by the Taliban, particularly against women, noting that the group has intensified its systematic campaign against the rights of women and girls. According to AI, the Taliban have also discriminated against ethno-religious communities, including compelling followers of the Ismaili faith to convert to Sunni Islam.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
زیر چکمههای خونآلود طالبان؛ مردان و زنانی که در سکوت شکنجه میشوند
