Two Afghan journalists were beaten by police officers after being arrested by the Taliban for providing coverage of a women’s protest in Kabul, the journalists’ editor reports.

Etilaat Roz’s founding editor-in-chief Zaki Daryabi posted on social networks the photos of two male journalists (there were large red scars on the back and legs of one of the journalists, and similar traces on the shoulder and arm of the other). There were also bruises and cuts on the two men’s faces.

Daryabi said the beating was an intimidating message to the mass media in Afghanistan where independent presses, most of which are funded by Western donors, had been thriving over the past 20 years. “Five colleagues were in a cell for more than four hours, and during those four hours, our two colleagues were brutally beaten and tortured,” Daryabi told Reuters.