Geolocation of the public hanging of a dead body in Baghlan, Afghanistan
Warning: Please be advised that this guide will explain how to geolocate a public hanging done by the Taliban in Baghlan, Afghanistan. The focus will be mainly on finding the tower-like object that was used for this. There will be images shared of what happened but I’ve taken measures by blurring out the victim. The victim is claimed to be, Mohammed Hashim, a police officer in the former government, according to many users on social-media. Other commentators don’t dispute the fact that the man was a previous government’s police officer, but they do claim that he was a thief and that this was the reason that he got killed before the hanging. Nonetheless I wish his loved ones all the strength and hope for freedom and peace in Afghanistan. Proceed with caution as this content can be triggering or distressing for readers.
Introduction
Since the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan after the Taliban military offensive in 2021, Taliban forces have executed or forcibly disappeared former government workers, police and intelligence officers, according to a report written by Human Rights Watch. A seven-month investigation by the New York Times found that the count has nearly reached 500 and 86 of those killings happen to coincidentally have taken place in the Baghlan province of Afghanistan, just like the video material that we’ve analyzed, managed to locate and verify.
The Public Hanging
On January 4, 2023, countless messages about the public hanging of a dead man’s body fell upon the timeline of social-media platform, Twitter. This message by Natiq Malikzada described how it took place in a city square at a crossroads within Baghlan city. To make sure that this material is saved, despite it being horrifying, I always use the archive.ph chrome extension or website for that. The reason for that is that it could potentially be used by journalists, human rights activists, or the international criminal court to one day hold those who are responsible for this accountable.
With these types of images, it is important to always put your own mental health and safety first. It is not worth risking having a trauma or nightmares solely for a geolocation. Therefore I also advise you to read this guide written by Giancarlo Fiorella from Bellingcat on How to Maintain Mental Hygiene as an Open Source Researcher.
Further tips by myself include:
- Always put the sound off.
- Put the video in keyframes by using the InVid WeVerification plugin
- If it is too violent, decide to put a grayscale or black and white filter on the images or video shown. Or decide to let someone else do it.
I will now share the image that appeared of the hanging with the victim being blurred out.
Searching For More Information
In this image, I see a tower-like structure and a tree that stands out the most. Given that the video is filmed from a specific corner with nothing too much visible in the background except for what I’ve already said, this makes me need to look for more images and videos filmed on the internet. So what I did was use Google Translate and translate ‘baghlan city centre’ to Arabic, which is مركز مدينة بغلان.
While you could try simply scrolling down each crossroad within Baghlan, it is smart to find more visual material available of the location to be able to compare the description made by posters of the video, the objects seen in it, and the area of the crossroads with the small details that you do have. Normally an easy step of the roadmap towards geolocation is by simply using Google’s Street View functionality or crowd-sourced platform Mapillary, but as you might see Baghlan does not really have much to offer in that aspect.
That’s why I went to Google Images and typed in “مركز مدينة بغلان”. As I am not familiar with Afghanistan myself, I was looking for photos or videos that would show that exact same tower object but with a better view on the rest of the surrounding area. After having scrolled down a fair bit, I recognized the tower in the following results:
By clicking on the image, you usually also get to see related content to the one that you are looking at. In this case the other photos that were revealed to me gave me the possibility to have more than one option to research.
I decided to use this one placed by Baghlan Radio from Facebook at first. The image shows the tower painted in pink, as this image was placed on 22 August, 2020, and it might’ve been colored white in the present time, as it is highly likely that the Taliban don’t like the color of pink. The text also explained the following:
“Central Baghlan heads toward uncertainty.
Two National Army officers were killed by the Taliban this afternoon during the pilgrimage to Najwi in Old Baghlan.
Taliban have reached the gate of the city. Every now and then they will set up a checkpoint on the Northeast Kabul highway in downtown Baghlan.”
The most relevant things are the terms: Central Baghlan, gate of the city, and downtown Baghlan.
I also know that, when looking in detail at the image, there are several things that I could cross-reference already such as for example: the presence of trees in the nearby area and the tower itself. Logging remains to be one of the main tasks that I perform as it doesn’t only make you remember the notifiable aspects in the area but also serves as a reminder for you to look back to.
At this point, one more extra image, could give more extra information or come in handy for later. I was looking for one that could give me a broader view of the crossroads and see if some things are different. In a post written by this user with an additional image, you can see this is definitely a crossroads that I should be looking at, the tree near the corner remains, and the building on the corner can also be used for advertising or perhaps political campaigning.
Now I have enough information to start geolocating where the hanging done by the Taliban happened. I know that it was done in the city center of Baghlan, at a busy crossroads as this additional video from 23 May, 2021, on Facebook shows, surrounded by trees with a building on the corner with the possibility of signs on them, and a tower-like object in the middle that consists of squares.
Time To Verify
Making it a little easier for myself, I started to use the GeoHack tool that will hopefully bring me closer to the city of Baghlan. However, as you can see in the image of Google Maps underneath, you can’t always blindly trust the coordinates that they provide as it might be in the vicinity of Baghlan but not in the city itself. In that way, it is good to take note that a portion of logical thinking is always helpful, because at the moment I am south of Baghlan city:
I need to move more northwards to arrive in Baghlan until I get the feeling that I’ve arrived more in a city environment than in the countryside. As you may have noticed before in this guide, the spot that the Taliban used for their horrifying act, is a busy one and they did that likely with a purpose of showing what will happen if you don’t obey to their rule or were part of the former government and have thus far been hiding.
Now that I’ve arrived in Baghlan city, I decided to continue moving on the road that I was on heading northwards as I expected this to get me the fastest to the city center. Upon doing so, I came across three crossroads with a structure between them and I had to make a choice on what resembled the most of the location that I was looking for.
As you can see in the image below the one with the large presence of cars and umbrella’s seemed to match the visual material that I’ve found on Facebook while also showing some resemblance of the video earlier mentioned as a red Toyota was seen driving by. With that in mind, I also pulled out another video shared on Twitter by Enayatullah Enayat that shows a close up of the public hanging. Again be warned: Proceed with caution as this content can be triggering or distressing for readers.
A building in the background paired with a red umbrella and the sight of a tree makes us see that this location matches the one that we’ve found on Google Maps here with umbrellas, the presence of trees and only a few buildings really close on the corners. Also when zooming in on the object on Google Earth, you notice that it is the only tower-like structure there with a square on it.
Having matched these certain aspects of the area, I feel confident that the public hanging done by the Taliban was located here at the 36.177022, 68.748140 coordinates. If you would want to be extra specific, you could always try to find more reporting on this via news articles and additional comments made by users on the video’s that were shared on social-media. At this moment, we do not think this is necessary as there are a number of things that have made this verifiable.
What I wanted to show with this, despite how shocking it is, is that even narrowly filmed material of horrible acts committed by the Taliban, in this case, are possible of being geolocated. The only thing is that you need more information, photos taken earlier, and more details on the area to get you to the point of verifying it to such level that you can be sure that you found the right spot.
I hope that you have found this small guide to be helpful and that you do remember that while what happened is awful, that the majority of the world exists out of people such as yourself who want to do something good for the world.
