By Rukhshana Media
A family member of the woman activist, Tamana Zaryab Paryani, told Rukhshana Media that the Taliban arrested Paryani and her three sisters from their apartment late Wednesday. Since then, Paryani’s family has been unaware of the sisters’ whereabouts.
“The Taliban put chains on the wrists and ankles of [the four sisters], and took them away,” Paryani’s sister-in-law who spoke under the pseudonym, Laila, told Rukhshana Media.
At the time of the arrest, Paryani sisters were in their aunt’s apartment in the Afghan capital, Kabul. A cousin broke the news to Paryani’s parents and brothers.
“When my father-in-law heard the news, he collapsed,” Laila said, adding that he is now hospitalized.
Since Wednesday night, Paryani’s brother has been searching for his sisters from one Taliban police station to the other, asking about the sisters’ whereabouts, with no avail, said Laila.
The Taliban spokesmen in Kabul and Doha have denied arresting Tamana Zaryab Paryani and her sisters. The Taliban spokesmen claim the viral video of distraught Paryani, asking for help as the armed Taliban knock on her door, to be “fake,” created to make an asylum case.
The Associated Press interviewed witnesses who saw about ten Taliban gunmen taking the sisters away forcefully on Wednesday.
Parwana Ibrahimkhel, another women activist, is also missing since Wednesday. Two of her friends who accompanied her in recent protests confirmed to Rukhshana Media that she and her brother-in-law were arrested on Wednesday.
A woman activist, who spoke anonymously, said she is worried about the Taliban’s infiltration of the protesters’ information. She said she had received messages from Paryani’s number, asking for other activists’ information.
Taliban denies the recent reports of the arrest of women activists amid increasing calls from the general public and civil society, asking for the release of the women activists and making the Taliban accountable.
The Taliban have intensified suppression of dissents and clampdown on women’s rights. Recently, the UN human rights experts warned that the Taliban are institutionalizing “systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls.” Furthermore, Human Rights Watch has criticized the Taliban’s heavy-handed repression of women’s protests.
