We’ll be killed: Afghanistan’s LGBTQ+ community forced to live in hiding under Taliban regime
After the return of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, members of the LGBTQ+ community are forced to live in hiding in fear of their lives. They urged human rights advocates outside the country to help them escape the Taliban regime.
“We will definitely be killed … We are asking to be evacuated immediately from Afghanistan.”
Hilal (name changed), a 25-year-old gay man in Afghanistan, is among hundreds of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) members in Afghanistan who fear for their lives under the Taliban government. They have urged human rights advocates outside the country to help them escape the new regime.
However, with the formal exit of the US and its western allies from Afghanistan, many LGBTQ+ citizens are forced to live in hiding, fearing they might either be killed or assaulted if they are found by the Taliban fighters.
A month after they took over Kabul on August 15, the Taliban have failed to deliver on most of their tall promises to upkeep human rights and women’s rights as per their interpretation of Sharia law. The hardline group is yet to make an open statement about Afghanistan’s LGBTQ+ citizens.
However, many fear that the new Taliban government would follow the same rules on homosexuality as they did during their first rule in the 90s. Under the first Taliban government, homosexuality was punishable by death.
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Hilal, who used to advocate for LGBTQ rights, said shortly after Kabul fell on August 15, some men came to his house looking for him. “They made threats to my brother, and they said to him that if I return home, they will kill me (for being LGBTQ),” CNN quoted him as saying.
With a shortage of food and other supplies, Hilal said he may never be able to go back to his family’s home.
“We are LGBT. It is not our fault. It has been written as such in my destiny, in my spirit … No one can change this. All they can do is to kill me,” Hilal said.
Rabia Balkhi (name changed), a 20-year-old university student, said one gay man in her neighbourhood was raped after being found by the Taliban.
An Afghan women stands face-to-face with a Taliban fighter who points gun at her. (Image: Reuters)
Balkhi said when she and her family left their home in Kabul and moved to a secret location after August 15, fearing they might be attacked if the Taliban came to know that she was a lesbian.
“The Taliban have exact information about every family here,” CNN quoted Balkhi as saying.
Balkhi fears that if the Taliban came to know about her, she would be stoned to death.
The fear of identity also plagues Abdul (name changed), a 21-year-old gay man, who is underground after the return of the Taliban.
“As a gay person in Afghanistan, you cannot reveal yourself, even to your family or your friends. If I reveal myself to my family, maybe they will beat me, maybe they will kill me,” he told BBC.
Abdul said even if the Taliban gave some rights to women, they would never accept gay or LGBTQ+ people. “They will kill all of them on the spot,” he said.
Life under previous Afghan government
While the return of the Taliban is bound to raise fear among the LGBTQ+ community, life wasn’t as easy in the former US-backed government in Kabul.
A 2020 US State Department report on Afghanistan said LGBTQ people faced “discrimination, assault and rape” as well as harassment and arrest by authorities.
“Homosexuality was widely seen as taboo and indecent,” the report stated.
Under the previous government, homosexuality was illegal and punishable by up to two years in jail.
According to a 2013 UK government report, while the Afghan laws on homosexuality were not always enforced, they did make LGBTQ+ citizens vulnerable to extortion and abuse by authorities.
LGBTQ+ community members, who spoke to CNN, said they regularly faced discrimination, including verbal abuse and the threat of physical violence, but there was “at least a space in society for them”.
Abdul corroborated this fact, saying despite restrictions, he was enjoying his life in the country’s vibrant city center.
“My studies were going perfectly. There was life in the city, there were crowds in the city,” he told BBC.
However, with the return of the Taliban, Abdul feels he has watched his life disappear in front of him.
“There is no future for us,” he told BBC.
Activism for LGBTQ+
Speaking to CNN, US-based LGBTQ+ Afghan author Nemat Sadat said Afghanistan’s gay, lesbian and transgender citizens had helped the country’s cultural life flourish in the last 20 years.
“(Transgender people) dominated the makeup industry and worked as makeup artists … There were concerts and fashion shows and all of this was dominated by the LGBTQ community,” CNN quoted him as saying.
Nemat Sadat is among many LGBTQ+ activists who are collecting support and aid for the community living in Afghanistan and seeking their evacuation from the country.
In a series of tweets, Nemat Sadat said, “For the past two decades, LGBTQ+ Afghans have risked it all to legitimize the democratic experiment and usher social progress in Afghanistan, even though they were themselves criminalized under the law and benefited the least from the billions in aid that flowed into the country.”
“When Kabul fell and the Taliban took over, the incremental gains that LGBTQ+ Afghans had made reversed overnight and now they also face an imminent threat of extermination under Sharia law,” he said.
“Does the US and international community want to be remembered for abandoning our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in Afghanistan to the world’s most tyrannical terrorists or rescue the lives of the most vulnerable people, in the most dangerous country right now?” Nemat Sadat added.
Trouble in evacuation
Hilal, the LGBTQ+ activist, said he felt furious at the US government and other Western countries for abandoning him and members of the community.
“Journalists, women’s rights activists or those who worked with foreigners, they were removed … but nothing has been done for us,” he told CNN.
Kimahli Powell, executive director of the NGO Rainbow Railroad which helps LGBTQ+ people around the world escape persecution, told CNN that evacuation of LGBTQ+ members in Afghanistan was especially hard since the community members were in hiding and unable to contact each other.
Taliban fighters stand guard at the Kabul airport. (Photo: Reuters)
“Many of the evacuations have been families or large communities, and that’s been harder for LGBTQ communities,” CNN quoted him as saying.
Some LGBTQ+ members also fell victim to online scams that offered them a safe route out of the country, Kimahli Powell said.
“(It’s uncertain) what the Taliban takeover looks like around access to borders and access to migration, but we’re committed to trying to find pathways to keep people safe and get people out,” CNN quoted Powell as saying.
Courtesy : India Today
Note: This news piece was originally published in indiatoday.com and use purely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights objectives.