Dec 2, 2001

Women's Prison a Sad Reminder of Repression Under Taliban Rule Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - She pleaded with the Taliban to let her marry the boy she loved - not the man her parents chose. But the Islamic regime said it was a crime to defy her family and sentenced her to five years in jail.

"I couldn't believe it. I cried and cried," said Fariba, 19, hugging her sweater around her trembling shoulders, her head covered in a brown floral scarf.

The inmates of Kabul's women's prison have been freed since the Taliban fled, yet 19-year-old Fariba still lives in her mud-floored cell. It has now become a haven from her conservative family.

A month after the northern alliance marched into Kabul, the prison remains a sad reminder of the repression women suffered at the hands of the rigid Taliban. Women were the target of some of their harshest rules.

Women were jailed for offenses ranging from talking to a boy other than a relative or traveling outside the home alone.

Fariba appealed to the Taliban when her parents tried to force her to marry a man they had selected for her, instead of her 18-year-old boyfriend. Blinded perhaps by passion, she thought they would understand.

'"Please,' I begged them. 'Please let me marry him. I can't marry the boy my parents chose for me. Please,'" she said.

But the Taliban rulers sentenced her to prison, and beat her boyfriend. From there, things only got worse.

At one point, one of the Taliban guards wanted to marry her against her will and take her to Kandahar, the spiritual headquarters of the movement. A guard at the women's prison stepped in and was able to prevent it.

Others were not so fortunate.

Two of Fariba's cousins, 14 and 15 years old, were taken to Kandahar and forcibly married. Some of the city's poorest willingly gave their young daughters to the Taliban in exchange for money, she said.

"They would begin by washing the clothes of the Taliban, and then one Taliban would say he wants to marry her and take her to Kandahar. The people are poor," she said. They would agree.

One of Fariba's relatives sold his young daughter to a Taliban soldier for 50 million Afghanis, then the equivalent of about $800, she said. Under Afghan tradition, the family of a groom often pays the family of a bride for the right to marry her.

For one year under the Taliban rule, Fariba lived in a mud-floored cell, with the only rays of light coming through a tiny window high in the wall. She is staying there now until she can marry the man of her choice.

There is no heat in the mud-room cells, and the only decorations are handmade mobiles - made of pits of paper folded delicately and gently into tiny flowers - hanging from the ceiling.

"These were made by the women," said Suhaila, a Taliban guard who has stayed on.

Suhaila, whose loose white scarf revealed dyed blonde hair, said the Taliban's authority was uncompromising. Their punishments were swift and harsh.

The most feared organ was the Taliban's ministry for the protection of virtue and the prevention of vice.

The ministry was the brainchild of Nooruddin Turabi, a burly man with one leg and one eye - both lost fighting invading Soviet soldiers during the 1980s. He imposed edicts against women that were unprecedented in their harshness. He also saw that they were enforced by the religious police.

Punishment for rule-breakers was often public beatings and in some cases a jail term as well.

Still tacked up to a board, protected by glass, at the detention center are Turabi's edicts: no mixing of the sexes; no music; no television; no photography; no women uncovered by the all-enveloping burqa; no women traveling by themselves; no women working outside the home; no men without long unkempt beards.

Detainees included a group of foreign Christian aid workers - two American women, four Germans and two Australians - who were rescued two weeks ago.

Six of the workers were women and they were held separately. Their prison was a squalid two-room compound in the center of Kabul.

On the wall, hand drawn by Taliban guards, were the words Allah in Arabic script. There was also a small handwritten paper extolling the value of purdah - wearing the veil. "The good thing for a woman and the beautiful thing for a woman is hijab (veil)," it read.

The foreign aid workers drew a mural to brighten their squalid prison where they spent several weeks, apparently a jungle scene with lovingly sketched details - an elephant, a giraffe, a camel - almost unrecognizable.

The Taliban soldiers, who consider images to be against Islam, tried to wash it from the wall.

AP-ES-12-02-01 1915EST

This story can be found at : http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAL3KDJRUC.html

-- Anonymous, December 02, 2001