Amidst mounting reports of sexual violence being inflicted on women and girls held in detention in Afghanistan, video evidence of a female Afghan human rights activist being tortured and sexually abused by armed members of the Taliban has surfaced, believed to be the first direct evidence of such crimes occurring in the country since the Taliban took over in 2021.
Video appears to show gang-rape of Afghan woman in a Taliban jail | Global development | The Guardian https://t.co/TMrNLayHmR
— Nilofar Ayoubi(@NilofarAyoubi) July 3, 2024
The activist said the mobile phone footage was later sent to her as a threat that it would be shared more widely if she continued to speak out against the Taliban regime. In the video recording seen and reviewed by media outlets such as The Guardian and Rukhshana Media, the young female activist is filmed being told to take her clothes off and is then raped multiple times by two men.
The woman in the video, recorded on a phone by one of the armed men, tries to cover her face with her hands. One of the men pushes her hard when she hesitates as he gives her orders. At one point, the woman was told, “You’ve been f***ed by Americans all these years, and now it’s our turn.”
The woman said Taliban authorities arrested her for taking part in a public protest against the regime and was raped while being held in detention. She has since fled Afghanistan. The activist also said that after she spoke out against the Taliban while in exile, she was sent the video and told if she continued to criticize the Taliban, they would upload the video on social media and send it to her family.
Show us the video then, if u can't then stop lying at least.
— Mahmood Sami (@TheRatedRMS) July 4, 2024
“If you continue saying anything bad against the Islamic Emirate, we will publish your video,” she said she was told.
She believes the attack was deliberately recorded to be used to silence and shame her. The person filming the assault captures her standing naked with her face visible and she is identifiable during the attacks.
The video is just one of many cases of teenage girls and women who reported being sexually assaulted and tortured after being detained under the Taliban’s draconian hijab laws. The United Nations’ special rapporteur on Afghanistan recently reported that women were thought to be facing sexual abuse and torture while in detention.
“I am alarmed by reports of torture and ill-treatment in Afghanistan, including allegations of sexual violence in detention, especially of women. We are continuing to look into these reports and to establish the facts.” Richard Bennett, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, has said.
OMG.. Only a woman can be so brave.. Its easy to die.. But incredibly difficult to stay alive & live a dishonoured life
— Truthseeker (@Truthseeker2464) July 4, 2024
After seizing power in Afghanistan in 2021 following a US-led withdrawal of foreign troops from the country, the Taliban has attacked women’s rights despite initial promises of a more moderate rule and has imposed what human rights activists and organizations are calling “gender apartheid” on Afghanistan’s 14 million women and girls, excluding them from almost every aspect of public life.
Women and girls are blocked from attending secondary school, banned from almost every form of paid employment, prevented from walking in public parks, attending gyms or beauty salons, and told to comply with a strict Islamic dress code. The Taliban also reintroduced public flogging and stoning of women for adultery.
Women inside Afghanistan are still staging public protests and continue to criticize the Taliban regime despite considerable risks to their safety. Over the past two years, Rukhshana Media has recorded at least 221 acts of protest by women and girls in Afghanistan.
Fake. It's Zionist News
— alex (@alex319999) July 3, 2024
Zabhullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban, denied the allegations of widespread sexual assaults against women and girls in detention.
Last June, Taliban officials took part in a special meeting hosted by the United Nations in Doha, Qatar, to discuss Afghanistan’s future under their regime. Afghan women were absent during the meeting, and women’s rights were not included in the agenda.
