‘No one can dare ask why’: This is what a backward society controlled by the Taliban is like for its citizens

Women are banned from leaving their homes without a male companion and nobody dares ask about schooling for girls living here. Taxation, that’s sometimes fair and often on the rich but compulsory, can be prey to rival taxmen and lead to beatings and imprisonment for non-payment. Justice is dispensed in mobile courts with adulterers jailed or killed and some reoffending thieves hanged in public. Bread, clothing and even the occasional smartphone are gifts for fighters.