Afghan human rights activist filmed gang raped in Taliban prison as guards shout: ‘You were screwed by Americans’

An Afghan human rights activist was filmed being raped and tortured by armed men in a Taliban prison, according to a shocking report.

Since the Taliban recaptured the country in 2021, reports of sexual violence against women and girls in Afghanistan have increased.

However, the video obtained by the Guardian is considered to be the first concrete evidence that these crimes are actually being committed in the country.

The British newspaper said the video shows the young woman being asked to take off her clothes and then being raped several times by two men.

As she is being attacked, she tries to cover her face with her hands, The Guardian reported, and when she hesitates to follow their instructions, “one of the two men pushes her violently.”

At one point in the video she is told: “You have been screwed over by the Americans all these years and now it is our turn,” the newspaper reports.

The woman seen in the video told reporters from The Guardian and Rukhshana Media (an Afghan women’s media organization) that she had been arrested and held in a prison for participating in protests against the Taliban regime.

The video was recorded on the mobile phone of one of the two male attackers.

The woman, whose name was not disclosed, believes the conversation was intentionally recorded to shame her into stopping her criticism of the government.

In the video of the attack, she is seen naked and her face is visible, according to The Guardian. This makes her identifiable.

She has since left the country, but said the clip was sent to her after her escape, suggesting that she was being intimidated after criticising the Taliban.

The woman was told that if she continued to protest against the Taliban, the video would be widely shared on social media and sent to her family.

The report on the video follows the publication of accounts by teenagers and young women who say they were arrested by the Taliban for wearing a “bad hijab” and were victims of sexual violence and assault.

The Taliban have imposed a strict interpretation of Islam and women are subject to laws that the UN calls “gender apartheid.”

According to the Afghan news service Zan Times, “countless young women have been arrested for violating the dress code that the Taliban deemed to be enforced.”

In more than one case, the arrests and subsequent attacks led to suicides, the publication said.

The body of a victim was found in a canal weeks after his arrest.

In May 2022, nine months after retaking the country following the withdrawal of US and other Western troops, the Taliban decreed that all Afghan women must cover themselves from head to toe, leaving only their eyes uncovered.

Earlier this year, the United Nations called on the Taliban to end their crackdown on “bad hijabs.”

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said at the time: “Women and girls were reportedly detained in overcrowded police stations, given only one meal a day, and some were subjected to physical violence, threats and intimidation.”

Meanwhile, Taliban authorities have been told that women must be included in public life, UN Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo said on Monday, defending the decision to exclude civil society groups from official talks in Doha.

Human rights organizations have sharply criticized the UN’s controversial move to exclude these groups, including women’s rights activists, from the two-day Afghanistan summit as the price for the Taliban government’s participation.

“The authorities will not be sitting at the table with Afghan civil society in this format, but they have heard very clearly the need to include women and civil society in all aspects of public life,” DiCarlo said at a press conference in Doha.

The United Nations-hosted meeting began on Sunday and is the third such summit in Qatar in just over a year, but the first involving the Taliban authorities, who seized power in Afghanistan for the second time in 2021.

The talks should focus on greater engagement in Afghanistan and a more coordinated response to the country, including economic issues and the fight against drug trafficking.

Since the Taliban returned to power, the international community has been grappling with the question of how to deal with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

The Taliban government in Kabul has not been officially recognized by any other government since it came to power in 2021.

They rejected an invitation to the Doha talks in February, insisting on being the only Afghan representatives and excluding civil society groups. But ahead of the latest round, their condition was accepted.

DiCarlo, who chaired the UN talks in the Qatari capital, said she “hoped” that the Taliban government’s policies on the role of women in public life, including girls’ education, would be “reconsidered”.

The UN and international delegations will have the opportunity to meet with representatives of civil society, including women’s rights groups, following the General Assembly tomorrow.

But Agnes Callamard, director of Amnesty International, said in a statement ahead of the talks that “giving in to the Taliban’s conditions for their participation in the talks would mean legitimizing their gender-based, institutionalized system of oppression.”

The Taliban authorities have repeatedly stated that the rights of all citizens are guaranteed by Islamic law.