Only 6 days ago  The Guardian newspaper ran a story about the death of Hamed Sabouri a gay Afghan.   According to his family and partner, he was detained at a checkpoint in the city in August, tortured for three days, and then shot. 

The abduction, torture, and murder of this gay aspiring medical student, was the latest victim of a string of violence against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ+ community, human rights groups war.  Sabouri’s partner said “The Taliban murdered Hamed and sent the video to his family and me, Hamed’s family have fled and I have been in hiding. We were like any other couple around the world in love but the Taliban treat us like criminals. They’ve killed the love of my life and I don’t know how I’ll live without him.”

“The biggest fear that every LGBTQ+ person in Afghanistan has right now is that they will become the next Hamed Sabouri,” said Nemat Sadat, founder of LGBTQ+ rights group Roshaniya.

Coincidentally the UK’s  Channel 4 have just screened a new report “Gay Under The Taliban’  It tells the story of four LGBTQ+ Afghans who struggle to survive under a Taliban regime so brutal it means death if they are discovered. Their powerful testimonies are brought to life with dynamic animation and actors.  

It makes for scary but totally necessary viewing even though it’s hard for us living comfortably in the West to even comprehend that this is happening now in 2023.  The first words we hear are ‘Please don’t post my real name. If you do the Taliban will kill me.’