‘That video saved our lives’: how women are defying the Taliban’s brutal crackdown on protest

Taliban fighters fire into the air to disperse Afghan women protesters in Kabul on 13 August, 2022. Photograph: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

It was nearly dark on 19 January 2022 when the knocking began. At first soft, then insistent, the sound echoed through the flat in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Zarmina Paryani and her sisters froze. They had known this day was coming.

“We always knew the risks of protesting and we were prepared to die on the streets,” the 26-year-old activist told the Guardian. “But I never imagined they would come for us like that – in the middle of the night, breaking into our home.”