The Taliban introduced they’ve arrested and can quickly sentence an Afghan lady who appeared in a video on social media earlier this week and stated a senior Taliban official pressured her into marriage and raped her repeatedly.
Within the video, the girl, who recognized herself solely by her first identify Elaha, wept as she described being crushed and raped by former Taliban Inside Ministry spokesman Saeed Khosti. She stated she was talking from an condominium in Kabul the place the Taliban had confined her after she tried to flee the nation, and he or she pleaded for rescue.
“These may be my last words. He will kill me, but it is better to die once than to die every time,” she stated.
Late Wednesday, a day after the video surfaced, the Taliban-run Supreme Courtroom stated in a tweet that Elaha had been arrested for defamation on orders of the chief justice Abdul Hakeem Haqqani. With out mentioning any trial going down, it stated she would “soon be sentenced according to Sharia law.”
“No one is allowed to harm the name of Mujahideen or defame the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the 20-years of holy jihad,” it stated, referring to the Taliban and their struggle towards U.S.-led troops and the U.S.-allied authorities, which the hardline insurgents toppled simply over a yr in the past.
Because the Taliban takeover of the nation in August 2021, Afghan ladies activists, in addition to Amnesty Worldwide, have reported a rise in pressured marriages of girls — together with instances the place Taliban officers coerced ladies into marriage by intimidating them or their households.
Within the video, Elaha recognized herself as a medical scholar at Kabul College and the daughter of an intelligence service normal below the previous authorities. She stated Khosti had pressured her into marriage six months in the past, when he nonetheless held the spokesman submit. Khosti tried to marry her sister to a different Taliban official, however her household efficiently fled, she stated.
“Saeed Khosti beat me a lot. Every night he raped me,” she stated, breaking into tears.
She stated she tried to flee to neighboring Pakistan, however the Taliban arrested her on the border crossing and introduced her again to Kabul and confined her to an condominium there. After they introduced her again, she heard a Taliban member telling Khosti that she had lived below the previous authorities for 20 years and ought to be stoned to loss of life as an infidel, she stated.In tweets Wednesday, Khosti confirmed that he had married Elaha, however he denied mistreating her. “I assure you that I have not done anything illegal,” he wrote. In latest months, Khosti was transferred out of his spokesman submit and it’s not clear what his new place is.
Khosti stated he divorced her after discovering she “has a problem in her faith” and he accused her of insulting Islam’s holy guide, the Quran. Elaha’s video was broadly shared on Fb, Twitter and WhatsApp teams, sparking a wave of requires assist and denunciations of the Taliban from ladies activists.
Since seizing energy, the Taliban have imposed rising restrictions on ladies. They’ve prevented many ladies from working, barred teenage ladies from college and required ladies in public to cowl themselves utterly besides for his or her eyes. The world has refused to acknowledge the Taliban’s rule, demanding it respect human rights and present tolerance for different teams.
