RISING UP

Taliban ‘Lock Women in Kabul Bank Basement’ After Thousands March for Freedom

Thousands of protesters took to the streets Tuesday before they were scattered by heavy gunfire.

Thousands of anti-Taliban protesters took to the streets in Kabul on Tuesday, and reports say they were pushed back with with gunfire, arrests, and one video appeared to show women locked in a bank’s basement. BBC News reported that the protesters demanded that women’s rights were maintained and denounced Taliban rule before they were scattered by heavy gunfire. A BBC team was prevented from filming the protest, and a cameraman from the Afghan news network Tolo was detained. The head of news at Tolo posted a video of dozens of women in an underground parking lot with the caption: “Taliban kept tens of women in the basement of Azizi Bank to prevent them from joining protesters in Kabul streets, some eyewitnesses say.” The street protests came a day after after Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the forces resisting the Taliban, urged civilians to join a “national uprising” against Taliban fighters.