Two journalists were mercilessly beaten up by the Taliban in Kabul for covering the women’s protest. Images tweeted from verified handles of two journalists on Thursday show the  two men stripped to their underwear and standing with their backs to the camera. Their backs and legs are covered with bruises and wounds. 

This comes days after the Taliban had assured that it would protect human rights and guarantee freedom of Press and of women. The images were tweeted by Marcus Yam (a foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times) and in another by Etilaatroz (an Afghan news publication).

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While Yam shared images of the two men showing their injuries, Etilaatroz showed a close up of the injuries. Etilaatroz has identified the two as its employees – Taqi Daryabi and Nematullah Naqdi.

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According to Etilaatroz, Daryabi and Naqdi – a video editor and a reporter – were covering a protest led by women in the Kart-e-Char area of western Kabul yesterday, when they were abducted by the Taliban, taken to different rooms and beaten and tortured, reports agencies.

Meanwhile, LA Times said that the Taliban also stopped its journalists from photographing the protesting women; the foreign correspondents, however, were only forced to leave the area. The LA Times, however, confirmed  that three other journalists, including the local head of Euronews, a pan-European TV news network, were also abducted, reports AFP.

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Last month, Tolo News reporter – Ziar Yaad Khan – was attacked by the Taliban and beaten up. Days before that, the Taliban killed a relative of a Deutsche Welle journalist while hunting for him.

The attack on journalists comes days after the Taliban put an interim government in place. Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund was appointed the interim prime minister of Afghanistan after weeks of negotiations that saw Pakistan’s ISI chief rushing to Kabul. His appointment is being seen as a compromise after the in-fighting between the so-called moderates and hardliners in the Taliban.

All 33 members of the entirely male cabinet are from the Taliban hierarchy or the Haqqani Network. Many of them have served in the Taliban regime of the 1990s. A majority of the cabinet members, including Akhund and his first deputy Abdul Ghani Baradar, have been sanctioned by the UN Security Council. Interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani has a US bounty of $5 million on his head. Defence minister Mullah Muhammad Yaqoob is the eldest son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar, a dreaded terrorist.