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Foreign Aid Workers Treated Well by Taliban, Afghan Prisoners Beaten
ISLAMABAD, Nov 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two American aid workers freed this week from imprisonment in Afghanistan told reporters Friday that although their Taliban captors had treated them very well, they also witnessed much ill treatment against the Afghan prisoners.
"That was probably the hardest thing about our whole time in jail. We saw some pretty atrocious things happening to the prisoners," said Heather Mercer, 24, in her first public comments since being airlifted from Afghanistan by a U.S. helicopter on Wednesday.
Mercer and 30-year-old Dayna Curry said in a press conference here that the Taliban treated them with great respect.
"They said we were a guest in their country and they wanted to treat us that way as much as they could," said Mercer, quoted in a
Washington Post article. "There were days that were a very difficult time, but I would say, all in all, the Taliban really tried to look after us."
"Considering the circumstances, the Taliban really treated us well. With what they had they gave us the best they could," she continued, adding she felt no animosity toward the Islamic militiamen and hoped to return to Afghanistan someday.
Curry said some of the Taliban guards offered to lay down their lives to protect the foreigners.
"What touched me the most is that they told us we were their sisters. Some of them said they would risk their lives and die before they let us die," Curry said.
But the two American women also recalled seeing other Afghan prisoners beaten severely.
"Women were being beaten until they bled," Mercer said. "Women were being arrested because they ran away from their husbands who beat them."
Another aid worker, 51-year-old Australian Diana Thomas, concurred with her descriptions at another press conference, saying the Taliban deserved to be ousted.
"We were in four different prisons and we realized that there were a lot of political prisoners," she said at another press conference.
"This regime deserves to be removed. People were beaten and tortured. In the ladies' prison we saw people being beaten."
Australian aid worker Peter Bunch, 58, said their 16 Afghan colleagues who were arrested with them were not as lucky as the foreign workers had been.
"We were pretty concerned about them because they were great guys. They were treated worse than we were because they were beaten," he said.
The Afghan prisoners managed to escape Monday night in a prison breakout as the Taliban fled Kabul.
The foreign aid workers, also including four Germans, were working for the German-based aid group Shelter Now International when they were arrested on August 3 for allegedly trying to convert Afghan Muslims to Christianity - a crime punishable, for foreigners - by temporary imprisonment followed by expulsion, but carrying the death penalty for Afghans.
In a Washington Post article on the press conference, Mercer was quoted as saying that they were "flabbergasted" at the list of charges against them, of which she said 80 percent was completely false.
Curry said the other 20 percent of the charges were valid, adding that she had given a copy of a Farsi and English book of stories about Jesus to an Afghan family in their home.
"They found that in the home; that part was true," she said in the Post article. "We also showed them parts of a Jesus film."
Mercer and Curry said that the sharing of Christian ideas had been part of "natural discussions" about religion, the
Post article reported, but they broke two Taliban laws by visiting an Afghan home, as foreigners, and by spreading information about Christianity.
After three months in prison, while the U.S. waged war on Afghanistan, the aid workers found freedom this week after the Taliban evacuated Kabul in the face of an opposition advance backed by heavy U.S. bombardment.
Although early reports from the Pentagon said that the Taliban had released the foreigners, later reports, including a statement from U.S. President George W. Bush, indicated that Northern Alliance fighters and local Afghans had rescued the prisoners.
Other reports state that the Taliban released them and were found by the Alliance and local Afghans.
Mercer and Curry described their rescue during the press conference.
"I've never seen anything like it before in my life. They were wild, wild west men for sure," said Mercer, describing the local tribesmen.
"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.
"All of a sudden an opposition soldier came in with strings of ammunition around his neck and he just started screaming 'You're free, the Taliban have left'."
The local tribal commander later arranged for U.S. helicopters to make a daring midnight rescue from a field south of the Afghan capital, as Taliban soldiers closed in on their position.
All the aid workers said they wanted to return to Afghanistan to continue helping the people of the desperately poor country, especially since the collapse of the Taliban regime.
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