Copyright oggbashan July 2010
I was hot, tired and appalled by the stories I had just filed as a reporter. I had been sent to Kabul, Afghanistan to find stories about women still being abused under the current NATO backed regime.
Although I had interviewed many women, all of whom wanted complete anonymity, almost all admitted that life had been much worse before the Allied invasion that had removed the Taleban.
Their stories were still bad yet all had a 'but'...
My room on the highest floor of the hotel had a balcony with a white plastic chaise longue. After a cool shower I spread a crisp ironed sheet over the hot plastic and, completely nude and still dripping, stretched out to improve my full body tan under the sun which would set in a couple of hours. The early evening breeze was still hot and dusty. If the shower was still working I would need another to wash the film of dust I would accumulate.
My mind was still reviewing the terrible accounts the women had given. They were whirring around in a mixture of fascination and horror. How would I have reacted if I had been treated so badly? In my own country the men would have been charged with serious criminal offences.
In Afghanistan a woman's evidence was still valued at half that of a man's and all the judges were male. Unless the male cruelty had been witnessed by a man who was willing to testify, the woman had no possibility of winning a complaint against even her husband.
I almost wished that I was back in our bed with my estranged husband, in a cool climate where we could make love without soaking the sheets with our sweat. My hotel was supposed to be air-conditioned but it only worked fitfully when the electrical power was available. That was a few hours a day at best.
I thought about Doug. Was he right that I shouldn't go to the dangerous places? He hadn't minded losing me to places in Europe, or Australia, but we had argued, and separated three years ago when I took assignments in Iraq and Iran. This trip to Afghanistan had been the final straw and we had begun divorce proceedings. I knew he was seeing someone new and I was thinking about looking for a new partner. I still regretted Doug but I had to move on.
I must have fallen asleep lazing in the sun. I came to with the sound of male voices in my room. Why? I'd locked the door carefully. I thought I would cover my nudity with the sheet.
I couldn't move. The sheet was tightly wound around my body. I looked down. There were many white straps around my body. My legs and arms were lashed to my sides. I tried to open my mouth. I couldn't. I could turn my head slightly. Reflected in the glass of the balcony door I saw that my mouth had been taped shut with white duct tape. My head was swathed in white covering all of my head except my eyes, nose and the tape over my mouth.
Some of the straps around me were holding me to the chaise longue.
I heard the slap of sandals as someone came across the room to the balcony door. He was dressed as a local Afghan tribesman.
"You are awake? Good. You will be taken from here."
He made a sign to people I couldn't see. Three men, similarly dressed as tribesmen, moved to the balcony. The four of them picked up the chaise longue with me on it and carried it into my hotel room. One closed the balcony door and then the curtains.
"I am Kemal, or that is what I am called. My real name doesn't matter. Now, Mrs Smith, or is it Ms Smith? That does matter you know..."
Kemal spoke to one of the others in a language I didn't recognise. One word I did know -- "passport". It was soon found in my shoulder bag and passed to the first man. He flipped through it.
"Mrs," he emphasised the "Mrs", "you have offended against our customs. For that you will be punished. It will be done with all the formal legal proceedings that our unfortunate country can produce but not here. Prepare her!"
Some of the straps around me were removed and I was roughly stood upright. My legs were so tightly wrapped and bound that one of the men had to prop me up. Another threw a long black gown over my head and yanked it down to cover me from neck to beyond my feet, splaying on the ground. He pulled a burqa over my head and shoulders, positioning the lace eye grid where my eyes would be but there was another layer of cloth sewn inside, covering the grid. I was helplessly bound, gagged silent, blindfolded and completely anonymous inside that burqa.
"Sit!" Kemal ordered. The man holding me shuffled me backwards until I felt something against the back of my legs. It felt like a chair. It was. A wheelchair. I was pushed into it. My burqa was raised at the back and my head was pushed between head blocks. A brown hand fitted a blue strap across my forehead and another across my taped mouth. More a straps held my chest and waist firmly against the chair's back. The burqa was lowered and I was blindfolded again. My bonds were presumably concealed.
I felt the hem of the long gown being raised. More straps went around my lower legs and ankles and lashed them to the chair before the gown was lowered again.
I heard the room door open. I was pushed towards the lift. I could hear people in the corridor but I couldn't shout for help. My best effort was a strangled grunt, drowned by the loud conversation of the men around me. I couldn't nod or shake my head. I couldn't move my arms or legs. All I could do was wiggle my fingers or toes but they were sheathed under layers of cloth.
We went down in the lift, through the foyer and turned left, the way to the car park. I was pushed up a ramp, presumably into a vehicle adapted for wheelchairs. I heard clicks as my wheelchair was clamped into position before the doors slammed and the vehicle started.
I tried to follow the vehicle's route in my head. First left, then right. Stop at presumably some traffic lights. Right. Left. Straight across several junctions, right, right again.
It went on for at least half an hour by which time I had lost count of the twists and turns. The road surface, never good, was getting worse and I was being jolted around.
Eventually we stopped. Someone got out. I heard the rumble of sliding doors or gates. We drove a few yards, stopped, and the engine was switched off. I was sweating inside the layers of sheet, robe and burqa but also I was afraid. What did they want with me? Would I survive?
The burqa was roughly pulled off. I was sitting in a large room facing a dais on which sat five elderly men looking severe. The one in the centre spoke a short sentence in Pashto. He had spoken too quickly and vehemently for me to understand. The straps clamping my head were removed.
Kemal sat beside me. He spoke quietly in my ear.
"This is a court room. You are about to be tried for adultery. Do you plead guilty?"
I tried to speak but my mouth was still taped shut. I shook my head as far as the blocks either side of it allowed.
Kemal spoke to the judges in Pashto. I understood him to say that I pleaded 'Not Guilty'. At least he had conveyed my answer correctly. If he hadn't, what recourse had I?
