A child bride won the right to divorce - now the Taliban say it doesn't count
Nazdana’s divorce is one of tens of thousands of court rulings revoked since the Taliban took control of the country three years ago this month.
Hekmatullah had initially appeared to demand his wife when Nazdana was 15. It was eight years since her father had agreed to what is known as a 'bad marriage', which seeks to turn a family "enemy" into a "friend".
She immediately approached the court – then operating under the US-backed Afghan government - for a separation, repeatedly telling them she could not marry the farmer, now in his 20s. It took two years, but finally a ruling was made in her favour: "The court congratulated me and said, 'You are now separated and free to marry whomever you want.'"
But after Hekmatullah appealed the ruling in 2021, Nazdana was told she would not be allowed to plead her own case in person.
"They told us if we didn't comply," says Shams, Nazdana's 28-year-old brother, "they would hand my sister over to him (Hekmatullah) by force."
Her former husband, and now a newly signed up member of the Taliban, won the case. Shams' attempts to explain to the court in their home province of Uruzgan that her life would be in danger fell on deaf ears.
The siblings decided they had been left with no choice but to flee.
"Women aren't qualified or able to judge because in our Sharia principles the judiciary work requires people with high intelligence," says Abdulrahim Rashid, director of foreign relations and communications at Taliban's Supreme Court.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24evnk5d2o
Nazdana’s divorce is one of tens of thousands of court rulings revoked since the Taliban took control of the country three years ago this month.
Hekmatullah had initially appeared to demand his wife when Nazdana was 15. It was eight years since her father had agreed to what is known as a 'bad marriage', which seeks to turn a family "enemy" into a "friend".
She immediately approached the court – then operating under the US-backed Afghan government - for a separation, repeatedly telling them she could not marry the farmer, now in his 20s. It took two years, but finally a ruling was made in her favour: "The court congratulated me and said, 'You are now separated and free to marry whomever you want.'"
But after Hekmatullah appealed the ruling in 2021, Nazdana was told she would not be allowed to plead her own case in person.
"They told us if we didn't comply," says Shams, Nazdana's 28-year-old brother, "they would hand my sister over to him (Hekmatullah) by force."
Her former husband, and now a newly signed up member of the Taliban, won the case. Shams' attempts to explain to the court in their home province of Uruzgan that her life would be in danger fell on deaf ears.
The siblings decided they had been left with no choice but to flee.
"Women aren't qualified or able to judge because in our Sharia principles the judiciary work requires people with high intelligence," says Abdulrahim Rashid, director of foreign relations and communications at Taliban's Supreme Court.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx24evnk5d2o
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"