42 days of horror inside a Taliban prison
At 7:30 in the morning, I left the house without telling anyone. The weather was relatively cold. I got into a car and headed toward Pul-e-Surkh. We had planned a protest for that day, and I was to pick up the banners from the print shop. Its door was closed when I arrived. After I called him several times, the shop owner finally answered. “Where are you?” he asked. I said I was near the shop. He gave me directions to the Aysan cake shop. When there, I called him again and he told me to get into a black car parked across the street. I felt something was about to happen so I quickly left the area, hailed another car, and got in. The black car followed me. I was nearly home when I encountered a police Ranger vehicle.
My name is Azada. As a child, I realized that my gender was ridiculed with words like zaifeh (weakling) and siyasar (bringer of misfortune). Later, I learned that I am Hazara, and would face discrimination and harassment due to my ethnic identity. Injustice, war, and violence gave me the motivation to seek justice and fight for human rights.
I first protested in 2019, in response to Taliban attacks on the districts of Jaghori, Malistan, and Uruzgan, and the government’s indifference in defending the people from that violence. That night, we gathered with a group of female students in the main dormitory of Kabul University. We chanted slogans to draw the government’s attention to the plight of those areas. The next day, we held a larger protest on campus. Girls and boys chanted together with one voice.
The sounds of our protest reached the presidential palace. Everyone was tired of injustice and oppression. Large groups of protesters were marching toward the palace. That afternoon, the enemies of justice targeted the crowd with a suicide bombing. In that attack, my friend Freshta and four others were killed. Her death devastated me. Her demand for justice had been answered with an act of terror.
Protesting against the Taliban
With the return of the Taliban, the human rights situation became even more dire. Violence, targeted assassinations, and increasing restrictions on women soon became regular occurrences On September 8, 2021, we staged our first protest against the Taliban’s restrictions and their mono-ethnic, all-male cabinet. A group of girls from western Kabul organized the protest. They were fully aware of the risks we were all taking. Overnight, we wrote slogans on cardboard and paper, preparing for a demonstration we knew would be met with violence. That day, we were insulted and threatened. All the girls and women were beaten. The marks of the Taliban’s whips remain on my hands, arms, and back. After that, women’s protests grew more visible. Justice-seeking women organized demonstrations in Kabul and other provinces, raising their voices to the international community. Women themselves led and managed these protests. I, along with a group of girls from western Kabul, continued our activities with greater determination and a clearer focus. We chanted in the streets, sang protest songs, and wrote slogans of freedom on the snow and on stones in the mountains.
When these street protests were eventually silenced through threats and repression, we turned to the internet and social media to carry out our demonstrations from home. The Taliban did everything they could to suppress our voices. But we didn’t give up easily but instead continued our fight for justice despite all the limitations and restrictions.
I hoped our homeland would be freed from the Taliban. I believed in the groups resisting them. I was proud of the women’s gatherings. I held onto the hope of a women’s revolution that would erase all misogyny and social injustice at its root. But it didn’t happen.
Angry men suppressed protesting women both at home and in society. Women were threatened, beaten, and assassinated. Some were tortured while in prison. In this climate of fear, the flame lit by women protesters on the streets grew dimmer.
The last protest in Kabul
As weeks turned to months, small pockets of protests continued to breathe life into the corners of the capital. Movements continued to respond to every new restriction. It was decided that we would hold a protest on November 14, 2023 focusing on the growing insecurity in western Kabul, the targeted killings of Hazara people in Uruzgan, the forced displacement of Hazaras from Daikundi province, and the increasing restrictions that the Taliban were placing on women.
We agreed to hold the protest in the house of one of the girls. No print shop would agree to print our banners. After a great deal of effort, one shop in Pul-e-Surkh finally agreed to print the banners and slogans and deliver them the next day at 8 a.m. I gave the print shop a pseudonym — Sahar — and gave the owner a phone number under that name.
That night, we drafted the resolution and prepared the slogans. That evening, I began receiving messages and calls from unknown numbers and profiles. They all addressed me as Sahar and asked for my location. I didn’t take the calls seriously — they were nothing new.
The next morning, I went to the print shop. I didn’t know the Taliban were lying in wait. When I sensed something was wrong, I quickly flagged down a passing car and got in. Upon seeing that a black car was following us, I begged the driver to go faster.
Near Sarai-e-Ghazni, the driver apologized and said he couldn’t take me any further. Fearful, I quickly got out and turned into an alley. I ran so fast my chest burned and I could barely breathe. I made my way to the Lini bus station for Barchi. In the crowd of people, I felt slightly safer. I got on a minibus heading home. My phone kept ringing with calls from different numbers, but I didn’t dare answer any of them.
In our alley, a police Ranger was parked near a civilian vehicle. My hands and legs began to tremble. They had seen me. There was no escape. I pulled my mask up, lowered my head, and attempted to walk past them. One of them said, “That’s her.” Another grabbed my arm and slapped me hard across the face. I fell to the ground. Two of them picked me up, beat me with punches and kicks, and threw me into the Ranger.
I screamed and resisted, hoping someone might come to my rescue. My head hit the door of the vehicle so hard that I briefly lost consciousness. When I came to, I was inside the vehicle, flanked by armed men. They had thrown a men’s blanket over me and were forcing my head down. When I tried to raise my head and resist, they struck me in the face with punches and slaps and then tied my hands.
When they finally removed my scarf from my face, I found myself in a room adorned with white flags. A large, heavyset man slapped me forcefully across the face. My ear rang for minutes, and I felt dizzy. He said, “Take this whore away.” I was left in an empty room, my hands still bound.
My entire body trembled with fear. My hands hurt terribly from the restraints. I remained in that dark room for hours, until a group of armed men transferred me to solitary confinement. I spent 42 days in that tight, dark, damp, and foul-smelling cell. I often went hungry. I was tortured during the day and the pain was so intense I couldn’t lie down at night.
I endured beatings, being hung from the ceiling, cold water poured over me in freezing temperatures, suffocation with plastic, and dozens of psychological and verbal forms of torture. They called me an infidel. Over and over, they tortured me for being Hazara and Shia. They demanded I recite the kalima (Islamic testimony of faith), then accused me of being a non-believer and said killing me was permitted.
I was shocked by how much my body could endure. At times, a person really does become harder than stone. I heard nothing from my relatives or acquaintances. I accepted that I would die there. The Taliban repeatedly told me my sentence had been issued and I would be stoned to death. They called me a foreign agent, an American collaborator. I couldn’t convince them that I had no backing at all.
I was only released after my family signed a guarantee that I would no longer engage in any political or civil activities. It has been over a year since that incident, but I still suffer from nightmares. I can only sleep with the help of sleeping pills. My right eye, right ear, back, neck, and stomach have been seriously damaged.
But I have not given up the fight for myself, for women, and for the angels who were killed in the path of justice.
Azada is freelance writer and a woman’s rights activist.
