A bitter account of the story of the imprisonment of a young Afghan girl, who spent two days in a Taliban prison for the crime of seeking justice.
Hakima Mahdavi is one of the members of the “Women’s Justice Movement” she was arrested from Tabsem cafe by help a person close to the Taliban, that sit to the cafe as spy, That person had found out by using a mobile phone that Hakima Mahdavi is a member of the movement for justice.
Hakima narrates the story of her imprisonment as follows:
“I made a date with my friend Sahar (pseudonym) at Tabsem Cafe, we were supposed to talk about a pre-planned program, we were talking, laughing and telling stories together. Unaware that a few minutes later they will take this smile from us forever.
A few minutes had not passed when the door of the cafe was closed with a terrible sound and the whole place was occupied by people affiliated with the Taliban. color of my face flied, my hands were shaking and I was out of breath. As if there was no escape from this nightmare. I looked around, the men were standing in one corner and the women in the other.
All those rascals who live under the name of man were whipped in turn for the crime of prostitution and adultery and stood in the other corner.
I thought for a moment. If we all raise our voice against this oppression, we will never experience this humiliation, but what is unfortunate and tragic is that in this path of injustice, oppression, and betrayal, women are the only ones who raise their voices and demand justice.
When it was my turn. He took my phone and told my mother with a short call that we will take your daughter to police station for prostitution and the call was disconnected.
I wish no one would experience Taliban prison, a year passed for me in one night. they was treated me like an animal and gave me rotten food that I could not eat or drink.
The Taliban beat my face and head, and gave electric shocks to parts of my body that I could not show to the media.
they asked me many times, who do you work with? Who do you get money from? And why are you protesting?
I was just telling the truth: “We are raising our voices for the defense of women’s rights, and we do not take money from anyone, and no one supports us.”
But they repeated this question every time with successive blows.
In exchange for my release, the Taliban demanded 10 lakh Afghanis from my family. When I heard this, I wished for death. Because I knew that no one would support us except my two brothers and my old mother.
I wish I would die and not experience these hard days of my life and destruction.
The next day, my brother was released me with 800,000 Afghanis, and because he hadn’t another 200,000, he was imprisoned for two months.
This is not the end of the story! From that day on, the family looked down on me and our relatives did not allow me into their house, they were afraid that the Taliban would cause problems for them when they saw me.
I spent the days in my friends’ rooms and houses. After all these hardships, my family and I immigrated to Iran.
Currently, I am busy with the hard work of “tailoring” to pay the borrowed money that they paid in exchange for my release.
I ask the international community to please help the women of Afghanistan. Especially the suffering and grieving women of the Hazara, whose fate is sadness, oppression and betrayal.
We are also human beings, we have the right to live, we have the right to be present in the society as a human being.
If the Taliban reads this story of mine, they should know that I will never surrender to their oppression, wherever I am in the world, I will raise my voice and support the rights of Afghan women and girls. This is despite the fact that protesting and imprisoned women have repeatedly reported the oppression and torture of the Taliban in prison.
These narratives show the life of women in prison. History should know that brave Afghan women spent days and months in the harsh and painful prisons of the Taliban for the crime of seeking justice.
kobra Alizada