Afghan professor Ismail Mashal went viral on social media late last year after he ripped up his academic degrees live on TV to protest the Taliban's ban on women attending university.

More recently, the 37-year-old professor handed out hundreds of free books to girls and women across the capital, Kabul.

But on February 2, Mashal’s defiance of the Taliban’s restrictions on female education finally caught up with him. The professor was beaten and arrested by Taliban fighters.

Mashal is the latest victim of the Taliban’s crackdown on dissent. Since seizing power in 2021, the hard-line Islamists have violently dispersed peaceful protesters and detained and beaten journalists and activists.

Mashal is among the scores of Afghan university professors and teachers who resigned after the Taliban banned university education for women on December 20, in a move that triggered a local and international outcry. Mashal also closed the private Mashal University, which had some 400 students, that he had founded.