Taliban 'SHOOT and beat protesters' who were supporting women and girls arrested for violating dress code

The Taliban purportedly opened fire on protesters on Tuesday, after dozens took to the streets to denounce the detention of women and girls arrested for violating the country's dress code.

Footage obtained by Amu TV showed residents running in fear down a street in the Jibrail township, northwest of Herat City, amid the sound of multiple gunshots.

Protesters can be heard screaming as others were beaten to the ground by armed officials wielding long sticks.

According to eyewitnesses, several were wounded during the shooting that occurred near an intersection known as 'Bahar-e Zendagi'.

Sources said the Taliban continued firing in an effort to disperse the crowd.

The demonstration followed days of growing outrage over the detention of women and girls in Herat, for allegedly failing to comply with the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic dress requirements. 

Dozens of women, including at least 21 whose detentions were independently confirmed, had been taken into custody by officials from the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Amu TV claimed.

The United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, strongly condemned the wave of arrests, calling them 'illegal and unacceptable'.

'I am deeply alarmed that for a third consecutive day, scores of women in Herat continue to be arbitrarily arrested and detained for violating the Taliban's dress code,' he wrote on X.

'The arrests must stop, and the women must be released immediately.'  

The arrests took place in several parts of Herat, including the Southern Road area, Almas Market and the Qasr locality, according to local reports.

Among those detained was allegedly a nurse employed at Herat Regional Hospital.

Flyers circulated across the area on Monday, calling on residents to gather at 8am local time Tuesday in District 13 of the Jibrail township, to demonstrate against the arrests. 

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has steadily expanded restrictions on women and girls - including bans on secondary and university education, limits on employment and increasingly strict regulations governing their appearance and movement in public. 

The Herat demonstration appeared to be one of the largest public protests in recent months directly challenging the Taliban’s gender apartheid. 

The human rights arm of the UN delivered a damning assessment of conditions in Afghanistan in a report released in March, warning that life for ordinary Afghans, especially women and girls, has severely worsened under the Taliban.

Presenting the report, UN Human Rights chief Volker Türk said: 'The cascade of edicts and laws announced by the authorities since coming to power in 2021 is having a crushing impact on the Afghan people, particularly women and girls.'

Women remain excluded from all education above primary school age, following a ban from higher education since December 2022.

In November 2025, medical graduation examinations were held without the participation of women for the second consecutive year, after having been banned from medical institutes since December 2024. 

Women deemed not to be complying with the chador requirement - the traditional Islamic full-body cloak - have been removed from public transport and denied access to public markets and services. 

Meanwhile, a new law demands that girls wait until puberty before seeking to get out of a marriage, and also requires mediation for women seeking to escape an abusive husband. 

'The authorities have, in effect, criminalised the presence of women and girls in public life,' Türk said. 'Discrimination affects their healthcare, their access to civic space, and their freedom of movement and expression.'

'Afghanistan is a graveyard for human rights,' he concluded.