LGBTQ+ activists Maeve Alcina Pieescu and Maryam Ravish were arrested by the Taliban last month while trying to flee Afghanistan. According to the U.K.-based human rights non-profit the Peter Tatchell Foundation, the two women face possible torture and execution.
“They are expected to be tortured to reveal the names of other LGBTs and sentenced to a long jail term or possibly executed,” said Nemat Sadat, CEO of Afghan LGBT+ network Roshaniya, which is working with the foundation to press for the two women’s release.
In a March 31 press release, the Peter Tatchell Foundation said that 19-year-old Ravish and 23-year-old Pieescu, who is trans, had planned to board a flight from Kabul to Iran with Ravish’s 20-year-old partner Parwen Hussaini on March 20.
“When Maryam and Maeve went to board the plane, they were detained by the Taliban’s intelligence unit who searched their phones and discovered LGBT+ content,” Sadat said. “Maeve and Maryam were beaten by the Taliban.”
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According to Sadat, Ravish’s family had forced her to marry a man. Pieescu had been trying to help her escape the country “at great personal risk.”
Hussaini, a Roshaniya member, was able to board the flight in Iran as of March 31. She later recorded a video in which she said that since Pieescu’s and Ravish’s arrest, both her own and Ravish’s family have threatened her life. She also said that Pieescu’s family in Afghanistan has “dismissed” Roshaniya’s offer to work with them to secure her release.
However, Pieescu’s Michigan-based sister, Susan Battaglia, provided a statement to the Peter Tatchell Foundation saying that she is “distraught” over her sister’s imprisonment.
“My family in Afghanistan is very anxious about Maeve being tortured and killed,” Battaglia said. “During the Taliban’s interrogation, Maeve confessed that she is not a Muslim and doesn’t believe in Islam. This is scary for our family since the penalty for apostasy — under Sharia law — is death. We ask from [sic] the world governments to demand that Maeve be released from prison and safely leave the country.”
Hussaini said that while she has had no word from Ravish and does not know “what situation they are in now,” it is possible that the two women have been put in solitary confinement and could be sentenced to death by stoning.
The Taliban returned to power following the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, instituting an immediate return to its interpretation of Sharia law. As Sadat noted, under Taliban rule, homosexuality is forbidden and women are required to have a male chaperone if they wish to leave their homes.
In October 2023, Afghan LGBTQ+ rights group Rainbow Afghanistan detailed the harrowing abuses queer people in the country have faced since 2021. In an open letter, the group said that LGBTQ+ Afghans had been tortured, stoned to death, sexually assaulted, and forced into heterosexual marriages, among other atrocities, while “a large number of members of the LGBT community lost their lives due to suicide.” The group called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to act.
Hussaini described the threat that she, Pieescu, and Ravish face from the Taliban and their own relatives as “existential.”
“We ask human rights organizations and international LGBT+ organizations that work towards helping LGBT+ people to please work with us to pursue our freedom and save our loved ones from harm’s way,” she said.
Sadat, similarly, called on Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, OutRight International, ILGA Asia, Stonewall, Rainbow Railroad, and the Human Rights Campaign to “spread the word about the arrest of Mariam and Maeve and pressure the Taliban regime to release these two brave LGBT+ Afghan human rights defenders.”
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