A number of women in Parwan province and Kabul city have protested against the Taliban in support of Elaha Delawarzi, saying that this group considers women as sex slaves.
Women in Kabul and Parwan province, demand to protect Elaha and complain about gender discrimination and severe violence of the Taliban against women, by publishing a resolution, protest videos, and pictures of their protest gathering.
These women chant to save Elaha.
Female protesters also complain about the mistreatment of women by the Taliban: “Jihad al-Nikah until when?” Forced marriage for how long? Women are not your (Taliban) sex slaves!”
They also called for support for women’s protests against the Taliban, saying: “We hate discrimination, Stand with the protesting women!”
Recently, videos of 24-year-old Elaha, a student of medical sciences at Kabul Medical University and the daughter of one of the security officials of the previous government, have become viral.
In these videos, Elaha asks for help to save her life and talks about the terrible experience of being imprisoned by the Taliban, forced marriage by Saeed Khosti, one of the leaders of the Haqqani network and the former spokesperson of the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior.
In these videos, Elaha says that in Jan, she was arrested by the Taliban intelligence at a checkpoint for having photos of former security soldiers on her mobile phone, but in the Taliban prison, Qari Saeed Khosti, the former spokesperson of the Taliban Ministry of Interior, who went to record videos of the prisoners, was sexually assaulted and forcibly married there.
According to Elaha, after the forced marriage in prison, Qari Saeed Khosti went to Elaha’s father’s house with a group of armed fighters to propose and threatened her family not to oppose the marriage.
Although the marriage of Elaha with Qari Saeed took place in the Taliban prison, in June, a wedding ceremony was held for Elaha in one of the hotels in Kabul city.
Elaha says in her videos that she was tortured every night by Saeed Khosti with a cable and a knife, then she was raped. She shows the injuries on her body in front of the camera.
Qari Saeed Khosti accepted “marriage” with Elaha in a tweet but denied the case of violence.
Elaha’s escape from the torture of this Taliban official also failed. She says that she was identified by the Taliban at the border of Torkham and returned to prison, but Qari Saeed Khosti took her back to his home.
Elaha claims that she is now imprisoned in one of the residential blocks in Kabul. By publishing videos, she asked for help and to save her life.
Translated by: Ali Rezaei
