The Price

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`If You Won`t Talk to Us Now, You Will Later` - Then They Beat Him

Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002

Taliban`s Systematic Torture

http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html

KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.

One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.

``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``

Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.

The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.

Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.

He felt a rush of fear.

Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.

``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``

``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``

The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``

Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.

When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.

Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``

The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.

Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.

Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.

After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.

Mr. Sayed handed it back.

``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.

The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

``Do you want to write something now?``

Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.

They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.

He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.

He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.

One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.

The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``

Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.

The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``

The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.

A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.

``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.

``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.

An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.

The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``

In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``

It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.

BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.

Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.

Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.

``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.

``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``

The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.

Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.

He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``

For Nasah and his fundamentalist `liberators` women:



RAWA`s appeal to the UN and World community

The people of Afghanistan do not accept domination of the Northern Alliance!

Now it is confirmed that the Taliban have left Kabul and the Northern Alliance has entered the city.

The world should understand that the Northern Alliance is composed of some bands who did show their real criminal and inhuman nature when they were ruling Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996.

The retreat of the terrorist Taliban from Kabul is a positive development, but entering of the rapist and looter NA in the city is nothing but a dreadful and shocking news for about 2 million residents of Kabul whose wounds of the years 1992-96 have not healed yet.

Thousands of people who fled Kabul during the past two months were saying that they feared coming to power of the NA in Kabul much more than being scared by the US bombing.

The Taliban and Al-Qaeda will be eliminated, but the existence of the NA as a military force would shatter the joyful dream of the majority for an Afghanistan free from the odious chains of barbaric Taliban. The NA will horribly intensify the ethnic and religious conflicts and will never refrain to fan the fire of another brutal and endless civil war in order to retain in power. The terrible news of looting and inhuman massacre of the captured Taliban or their foreign accomplices in Mazar-e-Sharif in past few days speaks for itself.

Though the NA has learned how to pose sometimes before the West as ``democratic`` and even supporter of women`s rights, but in fact they have not at all changed, as a leopard cannot change its spots.

RAWA has already documented heinous crimes of the NA. Time is running out. RAWA on its own part appeals to the UN and world community as a whole to pay urgent and considerable heed to the recent developments in our ill-fated Afghanistan before it is too late.

We would like to emphatically ask the UN to send its effective peace-keeping force into the country before the NA can repeat the unforgettable crimes they committed in the said years.

The UN should withdraw its recognition to the so-called Islamic government headed by Rabbani and help the establishment of a broad-based government based on the democratic values.

RAWA`s call stems from the aspirations of the vast majority of the people of Afghanistan.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

November 13, 2001

Shandana Minhas.

I hope the readers would get the nuances cached like gems in your piece.Excellent indeed!

This I am sending in a hurry to be among the first register my appreciation.I intend to read again more words like these.....

Quote:

[CNN is broadcasting pictures of four wheel drives and horsemen riding side by side into the distance, presumably towards Afghanistan. Mazar-i-Sharif has been liberated, they tell us, and women are burning their chaddars in jubilation.

Stop. Rewind. What kind of Afghani woman burns her chaddar at the onset of winter?

Forward. The Northern Alliance has entered Kabul. Men are lining up in droves to have their beards trimmed. The last Afghan woman to read the news on radio pre Taliban is now the first Afghan woman to read the news on the radio Post Taliban. Her broadcast meets stiff competition from a boom box singing of deewana dil.]

We know the lies & manufactured footage which Americans excel at but the insights you have given into this diabolical mind is Harper quality.

Rest assured,I think you have found your true calling(in case you had any doubts).Muslims need you like yesterday.Please try Al-Jazeera pronto!

``The Taliban are gone, the Taliban are gone, crowds line the streets to greet victorious soldiers of the Northern Alliance. What are they saying, what are they saying…a reporter on the fast track asks his interpreter. Things like my shop has been looted…my carpets are gone…they took my electric fan…the interpreter thinks. “Er…Victory”, he tells his charge, “they are saying victory.” ``

Is this for real? This is like the script for a comedy i have running in my head for years..

A white american goes to a third world country to report on a conflict. A crowd gathers round. What do they think of our boys he asks. The interpreter says to the crowd what the hell are you all staring at. They ask did he paint himself so white and rosy. The interpreter says they say they are grateful. And on and on. Actually i have come across milder variations of this in real life.

One wonders if the public opinion in the US is in effect shaped in part by the stringers..

What price should be paid ?

Price will be paid by Afghans is for not adopting to changing times.

It is the price paid for not revising the concept of God wher other Gods are inferior to theirs.

It is the price of being intolerant

It is the price for not being united as a country if there was a country.

A price for Afghan selfishness and eceipt.

A price where loyalties do not count.

It is price that dishonest people must pay.

Price will have to be paid for changing sides as carpet baggers.

Price when everyone is so hotheaded and each one wants to be Governor.

A price for arrogance of assuming others are weaker than you.

A price for unreasoning.

Price for unyielding where values are valueless

Price of macle chauvanism.

Price to malign women when a mother can not be looked into her eyes.

It is this heavy price which must be paid by Afghan blood, flesh and bone for being so wicked and keeping the company of the monsters, so rest of the world can sleep with peace and defeated would remeber it for long time to come.

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From the New York Times

``...Several hundred Pakistani fighters are also believed to have sought refuge in Kunduz, including relatives of some powerful clerics, this intelligence official said...Thousands of Pakistanis joined the Taliban in recent years and many of them have been captured and imprisoned by the Northern Alliance in recent days. Others have tried to slip back across the border into Pakistan, where some have been arrested.

At the news conference today, Mr. Sattar said Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to fight made their own choice over the objections of the government....``

Mr. Abdus Sattar should be ashamed of the statement that `those Pakistanis who went to Afghanistan to fight made their own choice over the objections of the government`. For a long time, Mr. Sattar`s government`s policy was to send Pakistanis to fight for the Taleban, and give the Taleban material support. Mr. Sattar`s government did nothing to stop these poor individuals from being used as cannon fodder. Now, that a few hundred (thousand?) in Konduz are entrapped, Mr. Sattar is backing out, and leaving hundreds hanging to dry. This moral obfuscation is inexcusable.

``...Mr. Sattar said Pakistan only wanted assurances that any prisoners would be treated according to international law...``

Mr. Sattar never sought any assurance about violating international law when his government was actively undermining the UN-recognized Afghan government of Mr. Rabbani.

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Dear Brothers,

ASAK & Ramazan Karim.

For your info :

Press Release

New Delhi, Nov 15 ``We reject POTO in toto as it is an enlarged version of

the now lapsed TADA.`` This was the consensus reached at the one-day national

convention, organised here today at Rajinder Bhawan by the All India Milli

Council. The convention was inaugurated by the columnist and Member of Rajya

Sabha, Kuldip Nayar and presided over by social and political ideologue

Surendra Mohan. It was participated by a large number of legal luminaries,

journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists, religious leaders and

politicians.

In a 6-point resolution, passed unanimously, the national convention called

upon the central government to withdraw immediately the draconian ordinance

and resort to the already existing laws to deal with the menace of terrorism

in the states where it exists. It also urged the political parties,

including the entire Opposition and those within the ruling NDA or

supporting it to vote down the politically motivated ordinance when it is

introduced in both the Houses of Parliament in the same spirit it allowed

TADA to lapse in 1995.

In his welcome address, Dr M Manzoor Alam said that the government has

narrowed the political discourse to extremely simplistic categories: either

you are pro-POTO or pro-terrorism. It distinctly echoes US President George

W Bush’s magisterial declaration: either you are with America or with WTC

attackers. Political choices and alternatives are not so unidimensional and

shorn of nuances. According to him, unlike the existing laws which have

in-built safeguards against their misuse, POTO has none.

In his inaugural address Kuldip Nayar averred that POTO is quite unjust

because onus is on the accused to prove his innocence and the accused is

presumed guilty till proven innocent. The eminent columnist wondered that

being a member of both the standing committee of the union home ministry and

Rajya Sabha, he was even then not consulted. He said the move is nothing but

to curb the fundamental rights of the common citizen. He apprehended that

like TADA, minorities and other weaker sections might be the worst sufferers

if POTO is allowed to become a law. Therefore, the entire country should

rise against the government move, he declared. He also feared that if it

remains in force, the freedom of media would also fall in jeopardy.

Surendra Mohan, in his presidential address, said that one is bound to doubt

the intention of the ruling coalition as the the 50-page document of POTO

does not contain the point ``a person spreading communal venom and dividing

different communities on communal lines would be considered committing an

act of terrorism``, which was included even in now the lapsed draconian TADA.

He said two out the 23 organisations, banned under POTO, were already banned

which shows that there already exist laws to deal with the situation.

Justice (retired) H Suresh, in his key-note address, said it becomes

difficult for him to believe that the government is not aware of what TADA

had done to the people. Yet this law is being sponsored not to contain

terrorism for the simple reason that such a law failed, but for for the main

objective to divide the people on the basis that all minority groups are not

loyal. The list of terrorist organisations amply demonstrates the

government’s partisan approach, he averred.

Prof Z M Khan of Jamia Millia Islamia said the present union home minister

who says that all those who oppose POTO would wittingly or unwittingly be

appeasing the terrorists, is the same person who was in the forefront to

campaign against TADA and his BJP had then first of all charged the Congress

government led by Chimanbhai Patel in Gujarat in 1990-92 for misusing TADA.

Then a large number of activists of BJP’s Indian Farmers’ Union had been

arrested under TADA. He also revealed that out of a total of 77,500 persons

arrested under TADA, only 8,000 were tried, 725 (0.81 per cent) convicted

and 3,000 are still believed to be in different jails.

Communist Party of India secretary D Raja was of the view that BJP is

working on two agendas, one communalism on long term and the other UP polls

on short term. He urged similar laws in Maharashtra and Karnataka be

withdrawn.

Congress Rajya Sabha member K M Khan said his party would oppose the

proposed bill in Parliament and for this purpose it had called a meeting of

its chief ministers in 12 states. Besides, it is also to issue a whip to its

MPs. Former UP minister Ashok Yadav asked the majority in UP to rise against

POTO so that the central government’s plan to gain from the elections could

be failed.

CPI leader and former Union Agricultural Minister Chaturanan Mishra said

that powers of court have been curtailed under POTO. There is no provision

of an anticipatory bail and any confession before the police has been

considered final. He suggested the Milli Council to take up the matter

seriously. He said that it should form two committees, one legal and the

other political to pursue the issue of POTO, besides preparing a booklet on

the dangers of POTO.

Akali Dal (Pheruman) secretary general Mahant Sewa Das Singh said the

minorities are always the worst victim to such draconian laws.

Human rights activist and columnist Praful Bidwai was of the view that POTO

is a photo copy of TADA with a few changes and is more draconian to TADA. He

said it should be rejected in toto.

Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Maulana Mohammed Shafi Moonis asked

what type of a law is coming, which is being opposed by all sections of the

society. There should be a bar on devising unjust, undemocratic and

draconian laws, the Maulana said..

Former Prime Minister V P Singh, who could not turn up due to indisposement,

in his message said: ``It is my firm view that laws, particularly those

posing a threat to the fundamental rights and creating a danger of

converting the country into a Police State, should not be devised to cover

one’s failures.

The participants included Prakash Ambedkar, chairman, Republican Party of

India; D Prempati, a Dalit leader; Kishore Lal, former MP; Santosh Bharti,

also a former MP; Mast Ram Kapur, a journalist; Dr Kalbe Sadiq, vice

president, All India Muslim Personal Law Board; Aziz Burney, Joint Editor,

Rashtriya Sahara (Urdu), and Maulana Abdullah Mughaisi, a renowned Muslim

theologian.

All India Milli Council

Resolution

Passed at the National Convention ``POTO and National Security``

New Delhi, 15th November, 2001

After eliciting opinions from various eminent speakers, consisting of legal

luminaries, journalists, intellectuals, human rights activists and

politicians from different parts of the country and discussing threadbare

the background, perspective, motive and provisions of the newly promulgated

Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) 2001, which is to be presented for

approval before Parliament, beginning on November 19, the national

convention organized on November 15 at Rajinder Bhawan, New Delhi by the All

India Milli Council on the theme of ``POTO and National Security`` passed the

following resolutions:

1. We call upon the people to reject POTO in toto as it is an enlarged

version of the now lapsed TADA.

2. We call upon the central government to withdraw immediately the draconian

ordinance and resort to the already existing laws to deal with the menace of

terrorism in the states where it exists, since there are bitter experience

of the misuse of similar laws like TADA. They had put a large number of

innocent people into suffering by putting them behind the bars years

together.

3. We call upon the political parties, Members of Parliament, including the

entire Opposition and those within the ruling NDA or supporting it to defeat

the politically motivated ordinance (POTO) when it is introduced in both the

Houses of Parliament for its passage, in the same spirit it allowed TADA to

lapse in 1995.

4. We call upon the allies of NDA, like TDP, DMK, BJD, Janata Dal (United)

and Trinamool Congress and others to rise to the occasion and oppose POTO in

both the houses of Parliament.

5. We urge upon all those organizations who have faith in democracy to

organize themselves to expose the dangers to the democratic values in the

country.

6. POTO is a serious threat to civil rights, democratic institutions,

existing human rights in the country and freedom of press. Therefore, we

call upon the major political parties in the Parliament, particularly

Congress party which has got a significant position in Rajya Sabha, to come

out openly against POTO, and defeat the proposed Bill in Rajya Sabha.

I saw your picture on thefridaytimes website. Your glasses really suit you. Its odd how you picture someone and they actually look so different :)

Anyway coming to the topic. RAWA has done a good job making their voice heard. There is much hope for Afghanistan if they succeed in their mission of representing women in the broad based Government.

Aisha

What price should be paid ?

Price will be paid by Afghans is for not adopting to changing times.

It is the price paid for not revising the concept of God wher other Gods are inferior to theirs.

It is the price of being intolerant

It is the price for not being united as a country if there was a country.

A price for Afghan selfishness and eceipt.

A price where loyalties do not count.

It is price that dishonest people must pay.

Price will have to be paid for changing sides as carpet baggers.

Price when everyone is so hotheaded and each one wants to be Governor.

A price for arrogance of assuming others are weaker than you.

A price for unreasoning.

Price for unyielding where values are valueless

Price of macle chauvanism.

Price to malign women when a mother can not be looked into her eyes.

It is this heavy price which must be paid by Afghan blood, flesh and bone for being so wicked and keeping the company of the monsters, so rest of the world can sleep with peace and defeated would remeber it for long time to come.

Re: Sigalph

somehow I get the feeling that your nick has been hijacked again...

anyway, whatever happens to POTO, I think Indians should be proud of the democratic process at work here...the ruling party has its back to the wall and is being forced to engage in some good old-fashioned debate with the opposition...if there isn`t enough support in parliament, it is dead...if ABV can add enough compromises to the bill to appease everyone, it will pass....but whatever happens will reflect the best of the democratic political process...

Shandana and others :

Reply No 4 has nothing to do with me. It is this guy called Pathan who somehow hacks on to my account... (to pathan, you say you are doing this for Islam, but you are actually a liar for you are using my handle)

Chowk staff Please look into this mess, and kindly ban the other handle... I think I have earned it.

-YLH

this was great Shandana. i like the way you`ve expressed your unique perspective about the situation in Afghanistan.

you look and think beyond the obvious.

sarwari #11, ``I saw your picture on thefridaytimes website. Your glasses really suit you. Its odd how you picture someone and they actually look so different :)``

whoa! hold it! what were you doing trying to picture Shandana in the first place? that`s mighty freaky if you ask me.