Afghanistan is a country with a long history of discrimination against its queer community even before the Taliban rule. The LGBTQ community in Afghanistan said that they’re being hunted down by Taliban. Taliban will enforce strict religious laws against LGBTQ citizens which will affect them severely, they said. In July, a Taliban judge told Germany’s Bild newspaper that the only two punishments for homosexuality will be stoning and being crushed under a wall. Taliban has told the media that they don’t have official plans for the LGBTQ community yet.
The representatives of LGBTQ population in Afghanistan have reached out to the allies outside the country to help them escape the Taliban rule. Ritu Mahendru and Nemat Sadat, two queer activists outside of Afghanistan have collected lists of names of hundreds of people who want to flee the country.
Soon after the Taliban took over Kabul, the members of the queer community went into hiding along with their families to escape Taliban’s violence. The reports of attacks and rapes against LGBTQ people are increasing day by day. Some of them are alone in the basements since weeks and are running out of food. The brutal laws of Taliban, have made the sufferings of LGBTQ community even worse than the ever before. Now that the evacuation flights are out of the country, the community feels abandoned by the international community.
The LGBTQ representatives told CNN news that before Taliban, there was at least a space for them in the society even though they faced verbal abuse and discrimination. The people who were openly queer before the Taliban regime are at grave danger and have to be rescued at the earliest before Taliban captures them. These were the very few people who felt safe and comfortable to come out and quietly build their lives true to their identities, they said.
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