By Archit Mehta

The Taliban has formed an all-male government after taking over control in Afghanistan. On September 14, at Kabul University, women were reportedly forced to hold placards in support of the Taliban and its strict interpretation of Islam, including separate education for men and women.

A couple of days later, some social media users shared an alleged screenshot of a news article by US-based outlet CNN. The screenshot portrayed CNN reporting that the Taliban has banned sanitary napkins in Afghanistan because it is not compliant with Sharia law.

This screenshot was shared by Twitter user @SaffronSunanda. After over 1,000 retweets, the user deleted his tweet. Multiple other users tweeted this screenshot on Twitter.

Similarly, some Facebook accounts have shared this post as well.

FACT-CHECK
The screenshot in question is manipulated. Alt News performed a keyword search and noticed that not only CNN but no media outlet has reported that the Taliban has banned sanitary napkins.

Analysis of the morphed screenshot

1. The screenshot has multiple grammatical errors in the headline.

2. The date and byline in the article are omitted.

3. The image in the article dates back to 2015. It was published by the Pakistan-based news outlet Tribune. Since then, the photograph has been widely used as a stock image by multiple media outlets.

A morphed screenshot of a CNN report falsely claimed that the Taliban has banned sanitary napkins.