The Taliban, which took control of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden's disastrous withdrawal of American troops from the country, smashed in the door of a Kabul apartment to arrest a women's rights advocate and her sisters, the Associated Press reported Thursday.
Tamana Zaryabi Paryani took part in a Sunday protest against the Taliban's mandate that women wear hijabs, Islamic headscarves. In response, 10 armed men who said they were from the Taliban intelligence department raided Paryani's apartment on Wednesday.
Social media footage shows a frightened Paryani as she screams for any kind of help.
"Help please, the Taliban have come to our home … only my sisters are home," the AP translated. "I can't open the door. Please ... help!"
VIDEO: Tamana Paryani, a member of #Afghanistan women protesting groups for women's rights, says that the #Taliban wants to enter her house by force.
In this video she asks #Taliban to come tomorrow and that she is not going to open the door at the middle of the night to them.
👇 pic.twitter.com/p3Dke0v2XL— Natiq Malikzada | ناطق ملکزاده (@natiqmalikzada) January 19, 2022
A witness told the AP that the 10 armed men ordered Paryani to open up and kicked down her door when she refused. The AP on Thursday found the apartment's door "dented and left slightly ajar."
A spokesman for the Taliban's General Directorate of Intelligence did not confirm or deny the arrest, though he tweeted that "insulting the religious and national values of the Afghan people is not tolerated anymore," an apparent reference to the Sunday anti-hijab protest in which Paryani participated.
The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan after Biden botched the withdrawal of U.S. troops, leading to hundreds of Americans and Afghan allies trapped behind enemy lines and the deaths of 13 service members.
The terrorist group has attempted to convince the world that it is more moderate than during its 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, when it massacred civilians, oppressed women, committed genocide, mandated sharia law, and harbored al Qaeda. Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said in December that the group wants the world's "mercy and compassion" and then asked the West to release $10 billion in relief money.