This week's Gandhara Briefing highlights our reporting on the devastation caused by the floods in Afghanistan, an Afghan woman accusing a Taliban official of rape, and the militants holding their first film festival.
In an online video, a young Afghan woman has claimed that a Taliban official beat, raped, and forcibly married her. The Taliban official has rejected the claims. But rights groups have accused Taliban fighters of forcibly marrying Afghan girls and women since seizing power last year.
Daily News: A minor girl in Afghanistan, Elaha Dilwaziri, a student of Kabul University, has claimed that Qari Saeed Khosty, the former spokesperson of Taliban’s Interior Ministry forcibly married, tortured and raped her. Dilwaziri has made the claims in a leaked video that has gone viral on Twitter. Qari Saeed Khosty, meanwhile, has rejected the claim of rape and cited her “un-Islamic beliefs” as the reason behind divorcing her. While in the video the girl showed injury marks on her body, Khosty said that he “didn’t hit her”.