LONDON - More than 200 women judges are trapped in hiding in Afghanistan and are at risk of being killed by the Taliban, campaigners have warned.

 

It comes after the Taliban freed thousands of prisoners, including terrorists and senior al Qaeda operatives, reports Thursday the British newspapers The Independent.

 

One judge, currently in hiding in Afghanistan, said she is petrified the Taliban or the recently freed prisoners will kill her if they find her.

 

The 38-year-old, who previously lived in Nangarhar province in the east of the country has had to flee. She said the Taliban came to her road a few days ago to ask the people she is staying with if any female judges were hiding there.

 

“I don’t know how they heard about me,” she told The Independent. “If the Taliban find me, they may kill me. I am feeling very scared. The Taliban are everywhere. Sometimes they come to the neighbours and ask about judges or other women government officials such as members of the army or women journalists.”

 

She said for the last week she has been harassed by a young member of the Taliban whom she prosecuted around eight months ago. She claimed he killed his young wife.

 

The judge added: “He had tortured her in a very bad way. Her face was black. She was dead. I was so afraid. When I saw the picture, I talked to the criminal and said: ‘Why did you do this to your own wife?’

 

“At the end of the trial, he said, what I did to my wife, I can do to you, when I get out of prison. I didn’t take it seriously but now the Taliban has come to power and released the prisoners, this man has called me via the phone. He has been calling me for one week and has called me many times.”

 

She said he told her he has tracked down her personal details through the court she used to work in. She left behind private documents when recently forced to flee from her local province in the middle of the night which she fears he may have found.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/09 September 2021 - - -