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Warning: discussions of rape and sexual assault “It was truly horrific,” says Zahra Joya, an Afghan journalist living in London, after watching footage showing a female Afghan human rights activist being gang-raped in a Taliban jail. There have been mounting reports that sexual violence is being inflicted on women and girls being held in detention in Afghanistan, but Joya and the Guardian has seen a video which is believed to be the first direct evidence of these crimes occurring. Joya is also the editor-in-chief and founder of Rukhshana Media, a news agency reporting on life for women and girls in Afghanistan. She worked with the Guardian’s human rights team to speak with many other female protesters and activists who have also come forward to allege that they have been tortured and beaten after being arrested for calling for women’s rights. The woman in the video shared the footage with Zahra and Rukhshana Media, she believes that the attack was deliberately recorded to be used to silence and shame her. The person filming the assault captures her standing naked with her face visible and she is identifiable during the attacks. According to the activist, the mobile phone footage was later sent to her as a threat that it would be shared more widely if she continued to speak out against the Taliban regime. Since they took power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed what human rights groups are calling a “gender apartheid” on Afghanistan’s 14 million women and girls, excluding them from almost every aspect of public life. Women and girls are blocked from attending secondary school, banned from almost every form of paid employment, prevented them from walking in public parks, attending gyms or beauty salons and told to comply with a strict dress code. Watch the video to hear from @‌zahrajoya51 about what this video tells us about the treatment of women that attempt to protest against the Taliban regime. Click the link in bio to read our latest reporting on Taliban’s ‘frightening’ new law which bans women from speaking in public.