A young woman named Elaha was forced into marriage with the Taliban Qari Saeed Khosty. He was raping me every night, Elaha says, and “Every night he would beat and torture me.” In a typical Taliban manner, Khosty denies the allegations.
KABUL SEPTEMBER 2: A young woman named Elaha claims she was forced into marriage with one Qari Saeed Khosty, then a Taliban Ministry of Interior Affairs spokesperson. In a typical Taliban manner, Khosty denied the allegations, saying he and Elaha have divorced and accused her of “insulting religious beliefs and practices and the Holy Quran.”
– “After publishing this video, it’s possible that no one will see me again, I might die,” said Elaha Dilawarzai, an Afghan medical student, in a video that surfaced on social media on August 30. “It’s better to die once than to die a thousand times.”
In the video, Elaha says her father worked for the previous Afghan government’s intelligence service, which operated against the Taliban. Earlier this year, she says, a man named Qari Saeed Khosty, then a Taliban Ministry of Interior Affairs spokesperson, forced her into marriage. “He was raping me every night,” she says, crying. “Every night he would beat and torture me.” She also alleges that he filmed her, implying during sexual acts, and threatened to release the videos.
Khosty denied the allegations, saying he and Elaha have divorced and accused her of “insulting religious beliefs and practices and the Holy Quran.” He apologized – not to Elaha – but to the Taliban, for marrying without permission. On August 31, a Twitter account purporting to be the Taliban’s Kabul courts wrote that Elaha had been arrested on charges of defaming Khosty.
Source: Human Rights Watch
