Afghanistan

BBC News and BBC ONE WestHD reported on a BBC investigation that gained rare access inside Afghanistan under Taliban rule, five years after the group returned to power. The report focused on a Taliban governor in northern Afghanistan, Abdullah Sarhadi, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, who was shown handling a divorce case involving an 18-year-old woman. The woman accused her husband of beatings and abuse. Under Sharia, a woman initiating divorce often requires the husband's consent and may have to repay the dowry. The husband demanded $30,000, which was four times the amount. The governor advised the woman not to seek divorce and only warned the husband against further abuse. The report also included an interview with a woman who had protested when the Taliban came to power, now meeting in secret, who said the Taliban are scared of educated women. The report noted that Taliban policies remain similar to their hardline interpretation of Sharia from the 1990s, and that the country is run by men for men. Both channels also mentioned a BBC documentary on the Taliban, available on iPlayer and the World Service.

This is a cross-channel consensus summary, not an objective account. Consensus can be uniformly wrong, or omit what only one channel covered.