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Taliban treated us with respect, say aid workers
By M. Arshad Sharif
| 17 November 2001Saturday01
Ramazan 1422
| Dawn
IslamABAD, Nov 16: The American and Australian aid
workers, released from captivity, told reporters on Friday that they were
"well treated by the Taliban during their three-month captivity" ,
allowed religious freedom to practise their faith and had their meals prepared
by a cook of a Taliban commander.
"They treated us with respect and gave us the best they could," the
24-year-old American Heather Mercer told reporters at a news conference at the
United States Information Centre.
The eight foreign aid workers, including Americans Dayna Curry and Heather
Mercer, Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas and Germans Katrin Jelinek,
Margrit Stebner, George Taubmann and Silke Durrkopf, were arrested in August by
Taliban for allegedly preaching Christianity in violation of Afghan law, a
charge which carried death penalty.
In their first media appearances at two separate news conferences after reaching
Islamabad on Thursday evening, the American and Australian aid workers recounted
their stay in Taliban captivity and the dramatic "Hollywood-style
rescue" following the fall of Kabul.
Ms Mercer said she had no animosity towards the Taliban. "They were doing
what was their job," she said. "But they treated us with
respect."
Voicing similar views about her captors, Dayna Curry, 30, said the Taliban
guards called them sisters and took care of them.
"A few Taliban soldiers said that they would not let any harm come to us
and would lay down their lives before harm could touch their sisters," she
said.
Both the aid workers said that considering the circumstances, Taliban treated
them very well. The cook of the Taliban commander made our meals, Heather Mercer
said. Ms Mercer said the Taliban allowed them religious freedom and they were
free to practise their faith.
"The Taliban did not stop us from praying or singing," she said.
"The only time they stopped us from singing was 15 minutes before the
(Muslim) prayer time," Ms Mercer said.
A local religious leader, who saw the news conference on television, called Dawn
and asked: "What do you think of Taliban now?"
Maulvi Abdul Rashid said that the aid workers had themselves admitted that they
were treated in accordance with the teachings of Islam, which call for treating
the prisoners humanely and with respect.
"The Taliban could have easily killed these prisoners before leaving Kabul
or used them as human shields but they did not do so despite being targets of
the Daisy Cutter bombs from the US," Maulvi Rashid said.
Ms Curry said that during interaction with Afghans, matters of Religion propped
up during conversations. She said she landed into trouble when she distributed
few copies of the stories about Jesus among her Afghan friends.
The aid workers said that while retreating from Kabul on Monday night, they were
shifted by Taliban to a jail in Ghazni, 80km from Kabul. "During bombings,
it was frightening and I used to slip under the bed," Ms Mercer said while
telling tales of fears.
One of the aid workers said that they spent two days in Ghazni before some 100
Northern Alliance troops broke open the prison and freed them.
"We heard men banging on the door and we thought it was the Taliban coming
back and that it was the end of the road," Ms Mercer said. "All of a
sudden, an opposition soldier came in with strings of ammunition around his neck
and started screaming 'you are free'".
"I've never seen anything like this in my life. They were wild, wild West
men for sure," Ms Mercer said, describing the Klashnikov-bearing men of
Northern Alliance. From there, the aid workers said, they were taken to the base
of a Mujahideen commander who facilitated rescue by the US troops. "At the
last moment, the commander who was in charge of us had a change of heart and
decided to let us go," one of the released aid workers said.
"The US troops arrived in the evening and airlifted them to the safety of
Pakistan." At a separate news conference, Australian woman Diana Thomas,
51, narrated similar tales.
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