When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a politician. I was fascinated by political conversations and hoped that one day I would enter politics to fight for justice. But under pressure from my family, I enrolled in a midwifery institute.
The Taliban takeover in 2021 caused me to join the women’s protest movement. I took part in several protests, and marched alongside Farah Mostafawi and Julia Parsi. We took to the streets, held underground reading circles, and organized small acts of defiance.After a month of Taliban rule, my institute reopened, I took the midwifery exam and found a job at a private hospital. Still, the women’s protest movement had become my main preoccupation. I organized during the day and worked at night.
But then the Taliban began showing up at my workplace. Fearing for my safety, I quit and stayed home for six months. In 2023, I found a job at a different hospital. On the first night of Eid al-Adha, as my shift ended around 9 p.m., I was stopped by Taliban members in Pul-e-Kheshti. They demanded my phone and ID. I refused and ran away. They chased me in a vehicle, but I managed to escape.
Later, when Tamana Zaryab Paryani launched a hunger strike in Germany, we protested to support her effort. That’s when the Taliban ramped up its efforts to crack down on dissidents, including us.
The Taliban arrested our colleague Neda Parwani, who was two months pregnant. The Taliban also arrested Julia Parsi, who had burned a picture of Mullah Hibatullah on camera. One friend warned me that the Taliban had ransacked Tamana’s house. Despite my family’s objections and though I had been threatened several times, I joined a protest calling for Julia’s release.
That was the day they captured me.
Taliban fighters surrounded me as I climbed stairs toward our meeting point. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” I told them. “I’m here to meet my colleague.” They didn’t listen. They struck my hand with an electric baton, hit my back with a rifle, beat my head, and handcuffed me. A black sack was thrown over my head.
They shoved me into what felt like the trunk of a pickup truck. I screamed and cried out. “Be quiet or we’ll beat you again,” they said. They asked, “Are you Manizha?” I said yes. They accused me of working for the Resistance Front. I denied it.
I was dragged into a room that contained a toilet, a desk, and two chairs. They tried to force me to unlock my phone. I refused. They threatened my family. Still, I didn’t comply. For nearly two hours, we argued. Then they electroshocked me. I fainted.
When I regained consciousness, they chained my hands again and showed me an image of Julia Parsi in another room. I asked to stay with her but they refused. For a month I was kept alone in solitary confinement while under 24-hour surveillance. The room had one window. I was forced to change clothes in front of cameras. Food and toilet access were limited. Every day brought interrogations, beatings, electric shocks, insults, and torture.
They wanted me to confess, promise that I would never protest again, and provide names of Resistance members, as well as their locations, and funding sources. I gave them nothing. For 16 days, they tortured me. I was not allowed to contact my family or even know where I was.
After 16 days, they finally let me call home. I was in Directorate 40. My father, brother, and brother-in-law came for a five-minute visit, which was supervised by the Taliban. After the visit, the Taliban beat them, breaking my father’s arm. He was hospitalized for a day. My brother and brother-in-law were detained for a week. They were accused of having ties to the Resistance and questioned about why I had shared photos of Ahmad Massoud online.
After a month in the investigation unit, I was transferred to the basement, where Julia, Neda, Parisa, and other women were also held. The Taliban had been rounding up and arresting women not just for protesting but for going to the gym, attending home schools, or even starting small businesses without permission.
I stayed there another month, thinking my innocence had been proven. But eventually, they forced me to give a false confession. They handed me a statement in Pashto and made someone dictate what it said to me: I had protested for money, I wanted to leave the country, and that I had ties to the Resistance. I denied it all. “Say what we tell you,” they said, “or you’ll be sentenced to one year in prison.” They recorded the confession and threatened to release it publicly if I spoke to the media after my release.
I was then transferred to Pul-e-Charkhi prison. Thousands of women were held there. The rooms were dark and overcrowded. Some women, under psychological pressure and abuse, attempted to die by suicide. A few lost their minds. Electricity would go out at night, plunging the prison into darkness. There were reports of rape. Some women became pregnant while in Taliban detention.
I had no lawyer for my first court appearance. It was just me and the Taliban judge. When I cried, they said, “If you cry, we’ll think you’re lying.” They dragged me back to prison. My family was told that I would be released soon. In the second hearing, a harsher judge from Khost was brought in. When my family complained, he pointed a gun at my mother and said, “Put her in jail, too. Anyone defending Manizha must be imprisoned.” My mother fainted.
Without a single question, the judge read out a verdict in Pashto: one and a half years in prison. I cried and said, “I’m not a criminal. I only asked for the right to education.” They took my fingerprint by force and led me back to my cell.
During Ramadan, the regime issued a pardon for some prisoners. But to be included on the list, they demanded US$5,000. They also set impossible conditions: I had to confess on camera, accept the verdict, and ensure three of my family members signed guarantees promising that I would not leave the country, speak out against the Taliban, or resist in any form.
“If you don’t agree,” they said, “you’ll be imprisoned for 20 years or executed. And your family will be destroyed.”
To save our lives, we agreed.
I was released on April 7, 2024. A week later, Directorate 40 called again. Fearing a second arrest, me and my family destroyed our phones and fled in the night. We made our way to Kandahar, contacted smugglers, and after five days of hunger, exhaustion, and fear, we crossed into Pakistan via Spin Boldak.
We have now lived undocumented in Pakistan for more than a year, always under the threat of deportation. We have no visas, no shelter, and no support. My father recently had a stroke and is paralyzed. My mother suffers from high blood pressure and frequent nosebleeds. I have a bladder infection and constant pain in my head and back from the beatings.
I applied to Front Line Defenders, but they said they could only help me, not my family, even though my family had to flee Afghanistan with me because of threats from the Taliban. I applied to the U.S., but the refugee program was halted with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
We are running out of hope.
