By Zohal Azad
The family of a young Afghan woman who vanished in Kabul last month after leaving her home to exercise say they believe she was detained by the Taliban for breaking strict dress rules.
Relatives say her father received a call demanding the family pay a large sum of money for her release, but he died of a heart attack hours later. The family are desperate for news of her whereabouts, but say Taliban security officials have thwarted efforts to locate her.
Details of Fawzia’s* disappearance come amid renewed international condemnation of the Taliban’s treatment of women after police detained about 30 women in the western city of Herat this month for allegedly violating hijab regulations. The arrests sparked rare street protests.
The Taliban have since issued new rules stipulating that all women must wear a loose and non-decorative head to toe covering in thick material whenever they leave the house.
Fawzia’s case underlines longstanding concerns over the number of arbitrary detentions and disappearances under the Taliban’s five-year rule.
Relatives say the 27-year-old vanished in late May after leaving her home early in the morning to exercise. Calls to her phone went unanswered, and it was eventually switched off.
Fawzia’s father later received a call from the police and was informed his daughter had been arrested because she was not wearing a proper hijab.
The caller told him to bring 200,000 Afghanis ($3,150) for Fawzia’s release or she would be transferred to prison. But her father collapsed shortly afterwards and died in hospital.
Fawzia’s friends and relatives confirmed details of her disappearance, but requested anonymity to protect the family’s safety. It was not possible to talk to her mother due to her poor health.
EXERCISE BAN
Since seizing Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have barred all women – including female athletes – from practising sport, even in private.
In January, the country’s feared morality police arrested a 22-year-old taekwondo coach, Khadija Ahmadzada, who ran a secret training class for girls in Herat province. She was released after about a fortnight.
Before the Taliban takeover, Fawzia was a keen gymnast. After women’s gyms were shut down, friends said she continued training at home, but later started walking and running outdoors.
One close friend said two men on a motorbike had warned Fawzia earlier this year that she would be arrested if she continued exercising on the streets.
“They said a woman should be modest and chaste, and sport was forbidden for women,” the friend added.
“(Fawzia) said Taliban members had warned her three times that if they saw her exercising again, they would take her away.”
A relative told Rukhshana Media that he and Fawzia’s mother had visited many nearby police stations to try to find her daughter, but the family had drawn a blank.
“They acted as if we were searching for a dangerous criminal rather than our loved one who had simply left home to exercise for her health,” he said.
“One Taliban official told me: ‘You people have no honour and have westernised the city’.”
Cases of arbitrary detention, extortion in exchange for the release of detainees, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings have been documented by rights groups and the UN’s mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) throughout the Taliban’s rule.
UNAMA has urged the Taliban not to hold detainees incommunicado and to ensure that their families are told the location of their detention.
Last week, members of the UN Security Council called on Taliban rulers to end their repression of women as they extended UNAMA’s mandate for another year.
They also strongly condemned the arrests in Herat and the use of lethal force to disperse protesters, which left at least two people dead and others injured.
