The Taliban are using detentions, repression, censorship, and killings to tighten their grip on power.
While the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine, Afghanistan has plunged into darkness. The Taliban are tightening their control amid growing reports of detentions, rapes, and summary executions of minorities, rights advocates, women, and people associated with the old government or the new resistance.
In the weeks since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, the Taliban have extended bans on many parts of what was once normal life before they took over the country last summer. Clampdowns on media, entertainment, and traditional holidays have been extended as the Taliban revive old practices, such as kidnapping foreigners for political leverage.
I remember the new and improved “Taliban light” yarn the media was telling just last year.
