Crystal Bayat no longer has a voice. Thursday, August 19, she spent the morning shouting and defying the Taliban. On this day of independence of Afghanistan, freed from the British yoke (at the beginning of the XXe century), with her comrades, women and men, this 25-year-old Afghan woman climbed the hill of Wazir Akbar Khan in central Kabul. With an Afghan flag on her shoulders, Crystal Bayat was in the front row and gave the the. With a closed fist and raised, she walked with a determined step, making the men understand that it was necessary to walk behind her. “Our flag, our identity! “, she sang loudly, picked up by a crowd of 200 people. Some were draped in the Afghan tricolor – red, black and green – others were waving it.
“When the Taliban arrived in Kabul [dimanche 15 août, au bout d’une conquête fulgurante de toutes les provinces afghanes] and that they lowered and threw the Afghan flags on the ground, replacing them with their white flag, I felt very bad, explains this Afghan, joined on WhatsApp in Kabul. I told myself that if I didn’t do anything today, even darker days would come. We have no choice but to be bold. ” Crystal Bayat, seven close friends and about thirty men therefore arrived at the site of the demonstration that they had announced the day before on their social networks. They started to walk and very quickly other people joined the group.
Present these days all over the Afghan capital and patrolling triumphantly, members of the Taliban pounced on the group and began to insult Crystal Bayat and her female comrades. “They would say to me, ‘You have no honor, otherwise you wouldn’t have left your house and you wouldn’t be screaming like that.’ They also insulted my mother who raised an unworthy daughter like me. I paid them the compliment ”, slips the young Afghan, mischievous.
The Taliban’s reaction did not stop with insults. They then proceeded to follow the group in the car and open fire. “So we got into a friend’s car. The Taliban stopped our car and beat up the men with us, calling them cowards, because they let us out of the house ”, she explains. Determined, the group continued on to the Hotel Serena. But the shooting started again. The group of young Afghan rebels therefore left the streets. Crystal Bayat saw the wounded by gunshots and blood. She does not know if any victims are to be deplored.
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