Taliban lies exposed as evidence of prison rape emerges

Explosive first-hand evidence of Taliban members “raping and torturing” an Afghan activist while she was in prison for participating in a public protest has been released by the Guardian on July 3. This is the “first direct evidence” of the gruesome prison rapes that journalists and the US government have been warning about for over a year.

The The news agency said its journalists had examined the video of the gruesome attack taken by the victim’s armed attackers. In the video, the young woman is ordered to undress in front of the camera before being “raped multiple times by two men.” When she tries to cover her face, one of the attackers violently pushes her. In another section of the video, a Talib tells her: “The Americans have been screwing you over all these years and now it’s our turn.”

The Taliban sent the video to their victim after she fled Afghanistan. They threatened that they would send the video to her family or post it on social media if she continued to raise her voice against the Taliban.

The newspaper’s report follows a report in June that a young woman arrested for wearing “bad hijabs” was sexually abused in a Taliban prison. Another young woman was found dead in a water canal more than three weeks after being arrested for wearing a hijab. Her body, which bore signs of torture and sexual abuse, was found in a pot.

Also in June, journalist Lynne O’Donnell revisited a report from May 2023 Daily Hasht-e Subh. The report says Afghan women were impregnated by Taliban members and raped in prison. Pregnant prisoners were “brought to hospitals under armed Taliban guard” and forced to have abortions, O’Donnell wrote. Several prisoners became so ill after repeated sexual abuse that they were “eventually executed by the Taliban,” the report said.

It is believed that the prisoners reported on by the portal were held by the Taliban’s General Directorate of Intelligence. According to leaked documents by Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary, the General Directorate recently asked subordinate groups to “avoid the distribution of videos, images and voice recordings.”

The report was featured in the State Department’s 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and is now the subject of an investigation by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights..

The head of the Taliban’s political office in Doha, Suhail Shaheen, did not respond to the Washington Examiner Asked to comment on evidence that Afghan women are being raped in Taliban prisons. Less than two weeks earlier, he had told Fox News that previous allegations that women were being raped in prisons were “mere allegations and accusations.”

Days before the media published its sensational article, a Taliban delegation met with UN officials and special envoys for Afghanistan for two days of talks in Doha, Qatar. Afghan women were not allowed to attend the meetings, which began on June 30. Human rights activists criticized the decision to defer to the Taliban and ignore the gender apartheid they say is practiced against Afghan women.

While Western participants in the meeting repeatedly stressed their intention to discuss the Taliban’s violations of Afghan women’s rights, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid stressed on June 29: “Our meetings, such as the one in Doha or with other countries, have nothing to do with the lives of our sisters, nor will we allow them to interfere in our internal affairs.”

The Taliban celebrated the fact that Western diplomats had met their demands for two days of talks. Mujahid praised the “spirit of cooperation” at the meetings and told participants at a press conference in Kabul: “Afghanistan has come out of isolation. An atmosphere of trust has emerged.”

Tomas Niklasson, the European Union’s special envoy for Afghanistan, welcomed the fact that participants in Doha had found “many common ground” with the Taliban.

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“Will that answer satisfy a girl who has been at home for 1,000 days and has no real school?” Niklasson asked. “Probably not. But I think my realistic expectation for this meeting was not that we could solve this in three days.”

Given the mounting evidence of the cruelty Afghan women face under Taliban rule, the West’s hesitation to take diplomatic steps with Afghanistan’s de facto leaders is unacceptable. Talks with the lying Taliban must stop. The cloak of legitimacy they provide is the perfect cover for the Taliban’s constant harassment of the very people they claim to rule.

Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News and co-host of The Afghanistan Projectwhich examines nearly two decades of war and the tragedy of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.