A Body and Spirit Broken by the Taliban

Washington Post ^ | 01/05/2002 | Kevin Sullivan

[miltonim]

Non-Muslims were a common target. About 50 Hindu families who live here were ordered by the Taliban to wear distinguishing yellow clothing. Most of the few remaining Jews in Kabul left the country. There may be a few Christian Afghans; if so, they hid from the Taliban for fear of execution.

[miltonim]

The soldiers pulled him out of his cell. They kicked him, punched him, pulled his hair. They spat on him. The soldiers begged the commander for the privilege of killing Sayed with their knives.

[miltonim]

The Taliban 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 Sayed's feet. It went on for more than an hour. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.

[miltonim]

He couldn't walk. His feet were battered and swollen from the beatings and the shocks. All his toenails were blackened. The toilet was a bucket on the next cell's floor. When they let him out to use it, he had to crawl there.

[miltonim]

Then they took him upstairs to a room that struck Sayed as some sort of torture museum. Whips, sticks, electrical cords. A device in which a man with his feet shackled to the floor is kept standing by a rope from the ceiling tied to his hair. They would each become familiar to Sayed, as would even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.

[miltonim]

"So you are British, huh? You are a Christian?" They tied him facedown on the table. Slowly, they took off their turbans, then their coats, then rolled up their sleeves. They beat him like meat on a slab, chanting: "God is blessing us. God will reward us." One remarked that he would enjoy ripping Sayed's muscles out with pliers.

[miltonim]

Osman said that Sayed could barely move or talk when he first saw him in a Kabul hospital in early 2000. He said the blows to his head and spine had caused severe nerve damage, leaving him incontinent and making it hard for him to control his hands, feet and speech.

[miltonim]

"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."