Do you know who attacked your radio station?

“I did not see it with my own eyes so I cannot say with certainty, but the fact that our station was destroyed on the same day that the Taliban entered the city makes it a strong possibility that the Taliban demolished our radio station.

"In the past, our staffers have been threatened by the Taliban, because the programs that we run are mostly about social progress and the rights of women, and this is against their interest.

"Lastly, we suspect the Taliban, because in June Mawlavi Noorul-Huda, the religious presenter of Roshani Radio, was killed when a bomb attached to his car exploded. After he died, my staffers received a threatening phone call from the Taliban — we were told that if we don’t stop broadcasting, we will all be killed like Noorul-Huda.”

Why do you think the Taliban wanted to destroy Roshani Radio?

“I began this radio station because after the Taliban government dissolved in 2001, the state of women’s rights in Afghanistan was below par. I had to find a way to educate women about their rights, and radio was the perfect medium to attain my goal because its reach is so widespread. And this is exactly why the Taliban attacked our office. They do not want women to realize that they have rights, they do not women to be empowered.

"For the last nine years, every day from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. we ran shows that educated and informed the youth, women, and girls in our society about their rights. We were not just limited to Kunduz, we also broadcasted in Takhar and Baghlan provinces.

"Everyone knows that Roshani Radio is run primarily by women, we have nine women and four men on our staff, and by attacking us, within hours, they erased all the years of hard work we had put into giving women the courage to step out of their homes to work. This attack is not just on one media organization or one group of women, it has set back the rights of women and press freedom that we have worked for all these years. Now we have started again from scratch.”