One of Afghanistan’s top women police officers is on the run in Kabul, fleeing from flat to flat after she was “brutally beaten” by the Taliban.
Gulafroz Ebtekar, believed to be 34, had a meteoric rise to become deputy head of criminal investigations in Afghanistan.
As a top Interior Ministry official, she was seen as a high-profile role model for Afghan women under the toppled pro-Western government, with a well-known face in the media.
But now she is fighting for her life after being knocked to the ground by Taliban thugs, and fearing she faces death, she told Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.
“I spent five nights at the gates of Kabul airport without water or bread, in a rain of bullets and surrounded by the Taliban,” she said.
“I witnessed the death of children and women.
“I sent messages to the embassies of many countries to save myself and my family, but all to no avail.”
She now appears fatalistic about her chances with the Taliban on her trail.
“I have nothing to fear, I have nothing left anyway,” she said.
The policewoman told how in the Kabul chaos she found US soldiers and believed they were helping her to fly abroad with her boyfriend and family members.
“We got to the refugee camp where the Americans were stationed,” she said.
“When the American soldiers were already near, I exhaled, I thought we were finally safe.
“I speak a little English.
“I explained that it was not safe for us to remain in Kabul.
“They checked our documents. I had my ID, passport, and police certificates with me.
“We were asked: 'Where do you want to go?' I replied: 'It doesn't matter, to a safe country where there is a chance we may survive’.
“They looked at me and answered quite impudently: 'Okay'.
“And they asked one soldier to show us the way.
“I thought they would escort us to a plane or provide security.”
They first escorted her to a crowded street where there was a terrorist attack, she said.
“We did not want to leave, then the soldier raised his weapon: 'Get out of here.'
“So we went out onto the road. At that moment, I didn't want to live anymore.
“I realised that there was nothing human left in people, but it was not safe to stay in Afghanistan.”
High-flying Gulafroz had studied for a masters degree at a top police academy in Russia, but the Moscow embassy also declined to help evidently not wishing to upset the Taliban, telling her it was powerless because she did not have a Russian passport or residency.
She told the newspaper: “I had dreamed of changing life in Afghanistan.
“First of all, when it comes to women in the police. And I did it.
“When I returned to my homeland, I got a job in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and soon got a rather high position.
“I became Deputy Chief for Criminal Investigations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Afghanistan.”
But the Taliban surge destroyed her old life and her dreams outlined in public in March of a major boost to women in the police.
“The situation changed in one day,” she said.
She suffered the Taliban violence first hand at the airport, she said.
Once she saw American soldiers “hitting people, women and children”, she said.
She left the airport and went home to be told by her mother that the Taliban had come for her while she was out.
She moved to the first of three flats she has used to try and stay out of the hands of the zealots.
Trying to escape on a new trip to Kabul airport the Taliban guards beat her.
“All their words were accompanied by blows,” she said.
“When I was hit again, I could not get up, I could not say a word.
“The Taliban acted like this: first they hit, then allowed you to move.
“You take one or two steps, and pay for it.
“They beat me with fists, boots, weapons and even stones.”
It was after this attack that she had sought out the US soldiers, but to no avail.
Her former female colleagues in the police have asked her “what’s going to happen to us” but she has no answers.
“I spoke on television, spoke out on social networks, fought against extremism, terrorism, advocated for the rights of women and children and believed in the best for our country,” she said.
“But my former life is gone. I cannot say what's next, how I can live and work.”
Six months ago she was warned by the Taliban, she said.
“The Taliban wrote me letters in which they said that I should not work in the police, that I had no right to declare about women's rights.
“‘What are women's rights….? Why do you publish your photos on Facebook and Instagram?', these are the comments I received from them a year or six months ago.
“And now they are in power.”
She warned: “I think the Taliban will never change.
“They will not agree for a woman to work, participate in public life, and be free.
“When the Taliban came to Kabul 20 years ago, they made the same promises as now for two months.
“And then they created their own state, their own courts, beat and killed people. For me, this is the most dangerous group of terrorists….
“Now my whole family is in great peril, every minute counts.”.
She said: “I was the first woman in Afghanistan to graduate from a police academy with a master's degree and hold such a high position…
“After me, about 4,000 Afghan women entered police universities.
“I'm not afraid to speak openly, because I have nothing left.
“The state of Afghanistan no longer exists, there is no freedom. All the time I fought to maintain a normal life in the country.
“If now there is no such life, why should I be afraid?’
