The Taliban is looking down a feminine Afghan prosecutor who for several years has investigated boy or girl abuse circumstances involving the militant group, forcing her into hiding for dread of execution.
The prosecutor, who Newsweek will refer to only as Mina—not her serious name—to defend her id, shared with this publication a threatening ultimatum letter she gained from the Taliban’s military council right before she fled her house in the central Wardak province.
“You have been accused by the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of aiding and abetting infidels,” reported the letter, which was tackled to Mina right. “We buy you to go away your position and enable and cooperate with the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate.”
It additional: “You will not be harmed by the Mujahideen if you please Allah.”
“I will 100 p.c be killed if identified,” Mina said, adding that a previous colleague was executed by Taliban fighters in Panjshir on Monday. Newsweek was not able to independently validate that report.
Mina mentioned Taliban officers are now presenting a bounty of 500,000 Pakistani rupees—around $3,000—for any information on her whereabouts. The sum is just shy of the countrywide median revenue of all-around $4,000.
Her investigations are uncomfortable for the Taliban, which is making an attempt to pivot from a stoic guerrilla organization to a operating federal government as it seeks to assert its handle about all areas of Afghan culture.
“They pressured little ones to enable plant bombs on roadways and in cars,” Mina explained to Newsweek. “A lot of them died.”
Mina is in a notably precarious position specified she is Hazara—a minority group creating up concerning 10 and 20 p.c of the populace that was brutally oppressed by the Taliban when it took power in the 1990s, which include various massacres.
“The Taliban won’t settle for girls doing work,” Mina additional, noting that the Taliban’s provide of amnesty for former authorities workers does not really extend to lawful professionals or some expert police officers.
Given that sweeping the country and getting the money Kabul in August, the Taliban has worked difficult to portray a more moderate, professional graphic in its rhetoric.
But even as its spokesmen dominated out retribution killings and promised protection for gals, Taliban fighters pursued previous authorities personnel and kidnapped youthful gals to marry off to militants.
Segregation of guys and ladies is seeping into schools and universities, when Taliban officers urge girls to comply with their version of Sharia law—stringent even by the requirements of the Islamic authorized program.
Some girls are pushing back against the return of hardline Taliban rule. Protests have been held throughout the country demanding the security of tricky-gained woman freedoms about the earlier two decades, with marchers also railing versus the threat of higher Pakistani influence more than Afghanistan by way of its Taliban ties.
Taliban fighters broke up many demonstrations by beating and capturing at protesters. Demonstrators ended up stripped of work in Herat, in accordance to some studies, with feminine lender tellers also purchased out of their lender in Kandahar.
The militant team also asked most doing work gals to remain at house, citing “stability good reasons.”
Afghan ladies and human rights observers are warning that early signals propose the Taliban is dedicated to rolling back 20 yrs of progress—even if constrained and concentrated on urban centers—for Afghanistan’s oppressed women of all ages.
“Afghanistan is my country,” Mina informed Newsweek. “I appreciate [where I live]. It is really pretty harmful for me. I am trying to leave Afghanistan, but I have no way out.”

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Photos
Update 9/16/21, 9.34 a.m. ET: The headline was transformed.