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It was the early hours of the morning when a guard entered Sohrab’s cell – a small, dark room with a barred window and a blanket on the floor – in Kabul’s sprawling Pul-e-Charkhi prison last August.
The 19-year-old was escorted to another room in the complex, where he heard a Taliban member order the prison guards to leave and stop anyone else from entering. Panic set in, for Sohrab knew what these words often preceded. He had experienced physical violence at the hands of the Taliban before.
“He grabbed me from behind, tore my clothes apart and raped me,” Sohrab – whose name has been changed for security reasons – told CNN in October. “For several days after that I had severe pain and bleeding.”
Sohrab was being detained at Pul-e-Charkhi on the charge of sodomy, after family members found out about his and his boyfriend’s clandestine romance last year, he said. News of their relationship had spread through their tight-knit community, leading to his arrest and forced confession.
Sohrab spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, following his release from prison after two months. On his release, Sohrab said the Taliban warned that if he was arrested again, he would face execution.
Human rights monitors have told CNN that since 2021, when the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, LGBTQ citizens have faced widespread sexual and physical violence in detention amid a systematic clampdown on minority groups. CNN has spoken to five LGBTQ Afghans who say they experienced physical abuse during time in detention, including – for some – repeated rape, electrocution, strangulation and flogging with metal chains. Transgender and gender non-conforming people are being “consistently” targeted at Taliban checkpoints due to their choice of clothing, human rights groups said.
In response to CNN’s findings, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “acts such as sodomy, bestiality and other perversions that contravene Islamic law are illegal and perpetrators dealt with within the legal framework.”
They added: “These allegations are fabrications as the alleged claims of torture, rape, persecution and mistreatment are themselves explicit violations of the legal framework.”
CNN was able to locate the former detainees through two human rights charities: Roshaniya, a nonprofit organization working to relocate persecuted LGBTQ Afghans to safe countries, and Afghan LGBT Organization, a Czech Republic-based advocacy group established in 2021 to monitor human rights abuses in Afghanistan.
A week after the first assault, his wounds still raw, Sohrab said he was raped again – and then a further four times by the same Taliban member.
“My whole body was praying for my death,” Sohrab said. “Every time, he would threaten me that if I dared to tell anyone about the rape, he would kill me with his own hands.” Sohrab managed to leave Afghanistan, but lives in constant fear of further persecution, for the country he fled to also criminalizes homosexuality.
Since 2021, Roshaniya has been in touch with around 2,000 LGBTQ Afghans in the country. It said that it has documented 825 instances of violence against LGBTQ people in Afghanistan in this time, including beatings, arrests and detention, but added that this was likely a “severe undercount.” CNN cannot independently verify these figures. Those detained in prison are almost always subject to torture, the organization said.
The nonprofit added that it has relocated 252 LGBTQ Afghans to safe countries since 2021.
Neela Ghoshal, senior director of law and policy at US-based charity Outright International, said that there could be a “number of reasons” why the Taliban is using sexual violence as a tool of repression against the LGBTQ community.
“We know that so-called ‘corrective rape’ - which I think of as not corrective at all, but as bias-motivated rape that is often done to punish people - happens all over the world,” she said, and is more about power than sexuality.
In the context of Afghanistan, she said, some of the same Taliban members who are calling for LGBTQ people to be punished for same-sex relationships are also engaging in non-consensual and violent sexual abuse of men and boys.
When the Taliban completed their lightning takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 – following the messy withdrawal of US-led troops after two decades of conflict – it wasn’t clear how severely they would enforce their strict interpretation of religious laws against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ community.
Under the previous Western-backed government, same-sex sexual relations were already punishable by up to two years in jail, with LGBTQ people also facing harassment and violence from society and the police, according to the US Department of State.
During the Taliban’s resurgence, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexuality – stoning or being crushed under a wall, according to Germany’s Bild newspaper; others said the Islamist group had tempered its more radical attitudes.
“I remember many people, many politicians, claiming that the Taliban had changed, that they would not practice those brutal punishments that they used to do,” Artemis Akbary, director of Afghan LGBT Organization, told CNN. “But now, after three years, I can see that, for example, the Taliban uses sexual violence as a weapon to oppress the LGBTQI community.”
Afghan LGBT Organization has verified more than 50 cases of detention of LGBTQ people since August 2021, using documentation issued by the Taliban, such as letters and arrest warrants, and is working to verify a further 150 cases reported by individuals.
It’s hard to estimate how many LGBTQ people have been detained in Afghanistan overall since 2021, Ghoshal said, thanks to a lack of reporting channels and a fear of reprisal for speaking out.
But the Taliban certainly appear to have become more systematic in their persecution of LGBTQ people since regaining power, Ghoshal said. Some people have reported that officials are actively “hunting for them, coming to their houses, with arrest warrants issued,” she said.
“I will never forget when the Taliban came to our house,” Samiar Nazari, a 22-year-old transgender man, told CNN. “Some villagers had informed the Taliban that there was a girl who wore men’s clothes.”
Nazari, who fled before later being beaten and briefly detained by the Taliban, is now in a safe country but says living under Taliban rule is “forever etched in my mind, memories of fear, helplessness, and loss of hope.”
Others have been detained over content found on their phones or posted on social media, suggesting the Taliban could be using the internet to track down members of the LGBTQ community, Akbary said.
“One night I was in a taxi to come home, (and) the Taliban stopped me and the taxi driver for a search,” said Abdul, a 22-year-old gay man. “They saw my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. All the photos and content were LGBTQ,” he said.
Abdul had managed to flee to Iran following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, and then to Turkey, but he was deported back to Afghanistan in early 2024, he said.
Speaking with CNN in October, Abdul recalled how he was taken to a “dark room” where he suffered “torture and beatings” multiple times a day. “Every night a big guy used to come to beat me up. Several times he choked me,” Abdul said. “Many times, I thought I was going to die.”
After two weeks held in this room, Abdul was transferred to a prison in Herat, northwestern Afghanistan, for a further six months, only being released when a friend paid the Taliban the equivalent of $1,200 to bail him out, he said.
His family refused to have him back due to his sexuality being exposed, he said, and he now lives in hiding again, with no support from friends or relatives. “I am still in the Taliban jail, but the only difference is that I am not inside a prison.”
The 19-year-old was escorted to another room in the complex, where he heard a Taliban member order the prison guards to leave and stop anyone else from entering. Panic set in, for Sohrab knew what these words often preceded. He had experienced physical violence at the hands of the Taliban before.
“He grabbed me from behind, tore my clothes apart and raped me,” Sohrab – whose name has been changed for security reasons – told CNN in October. “For several days after that I had severe pain and bleeding.”
Sohrab was being detained at Pul-e-Charkhi on the charge of sodomy, after family members found out about his and his boyfriend’s clandestine romance last year, he said. News of their relationship had spread through their tight-knit community, leading to his arrest and forced confession.
Sohrab spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity, following his release from prison after two months. On his release, Sohrab said the Taliban warned that if he was arrested again, he would face execution.
Human rights monitors have told CNN that since 2021, when the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan, LGBTQ citizens have faced widespread sexual and physical violence in detention amid a systematic clampdown on minority groups. CNN has spoken to five LGBTQ Afghans who say they experienced physical abuse during time in detention, including – for some – repeated rape, electrocution, strangulation and flogging with metal chains. Transgender and gender non-conforming people are being “consistently” targeted at Taliban checkpoints due to their choice of clothing, human rights groups said.
In response to CNN’s findings, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “acts such as sodomy, bestiality and other perversions that contravene Islamic law are illegal and perpetrators dealt with within the legal framework.”
They added: “These allegations are fabrications as the alleged claims of torture, rape, persecution and mistreatment are themselves explicit violations of the legal framework.”
CNN was able to locate the former detainees through two human rights charities: Roshaniya, a nonprofit organization working to relocate persecuted LGBTQ Afghans to safe countries, and Afghan LGBT Organization, a Czech Republic-based advocacy group established in 2021 to monitor human rights abuses in Afghanistan.
A week after the first assault, his wounds still raw, Sohrab said he was raped again – and then a further four times by the same Taliban member.
“My whole body was praying for my death,” Sohrab said. “Every time, he would threaten me that if I dared to tell anyone about the rape, he would kill me with his own hands.” Sohrab managed to leave Afghanistan, but lives in constant fear of further persecution, for the country he fled to also criminalizes homosexuality.
Since 2021, Roshaniya has been in touch with around 2,000 LGBTQ Afghans in the country. It said that it has documented 825 instances of violence against LGBTQ people in Afghanistan in this time, including beatings, arrests and detention, but added that this was likely a “severe undercount.” CNN cannot independently verify these figures. Those detained in prison are almost always subject to torture, the organization said.
The nonprofit added that it has relocated 252 LGBTQ Afghans to safe countries since 2021.
Neela Ghoshal, senior director of law and policy at US-based charity Outright International, said that there could be a “number of reasons” why the Taliban is using sexual violence as a tool of repression against the LGBTQ community.
“We know that so-called ‘corrective rape’ - which I think of as not corrective at all, but as bias-motivated rape that is often done to punish people - happens all over the world,” she said, and is more about power than sexuality.
In the context of Afghanistan, she said, some of the same Taliban members who are calling for LGBTQ people to be punished for same-sex relationships are also engaging in non-consensual and violent sexual abuse of men and boys.
When the Taliban completed their lightning takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 – following the messy withdrawal of US-led troops after two decades of conflict – it wasn’t clear how severely they would enforce their strict interpretation of religious laws against Afghanistan’s LGBTQ community.
Under the previous Western-backed government, same-sex sexual relations were already punishable by up to two years in jail, with LGBTQ people also facing harassment and violence from society and the police, according to the US Department of State.
During the Taliban’s resurgence, one Taliban judge said there were only two punishments for homosexuality – stoning or being crushed under a wall, according to Germany’s Bild newspaper; others said the Islamist group had tempered its more radical attitudes.
“I remember many people, many politicians, claiming that the Taliban had changed, that they would not practice those brutal punishments that they used to do,” Artemis Akbary, director of Afghan LGBT Organization, told CNN. “But now, after three years, I can see that, for example, the Taliban uses sexual violence as a weapon to oppress the LGBTQI community.”
Afghan LGBT Organization has verified more than 50 cases of detention of LGBTQ people since August 2021, using documentation issued by the Taliban, such as letters and arrest warrants, and is working to verify a further 150 cases reported by individuals.
‘Afghanistan itself is a prison for us’
It’s hard to estimate how many LGBTQ people have been detained in Afghanistan overall since 2021, Ghoshal said, thanks to a lack of reporting channels and a fear of reprisal for speaking out.
But the Taliban certainly appear to have become more systematic in their persecution of LGBTQ people since regaining power, Ghoshal said. Some people have reported that officials are actively “hunting for them, coming to their houses, with arrest warrants issued,” she said.
“I will never forget when the Taliban came to our house,” Samiar Nazari, a 22-year-old transgender man, told CNN. “Some villagers had informed the Taliban that there was a girl who wore men’s clothes.”
Nazari, who fled before later being beaten and briefly detained by the Taliban, is now in a safe country but says living under Taliban rule is “forever etched in my mind, memories of fear, helplessness, and loss of hope.”
Others have been detained over content found on their phones or posted on social media, suggesting the Taliban could be using the internet to track down members of the LGBTQ community, Akbary said.
“One night I was in a taxi to come home, (and) the Taliban stopped me and the taxi driver for a search,” said Abdul, a 22-year-old gay man. “They saw my Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. All the photos and content were LGBTQ,” he said.
Abdul had managed to flee to Iran following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, and then to Turkey, but he was deported back to Afghanistan in early 2024, he said.
Speaking with CNN in October, Abdul recalled how he was taken to a “dark room” where he suffered “torture and beatings” multiple times a day. “Every night a big guy used to come to beat me up. Several times he choked me,” Abdul said. “Many times, I thought I was going to die.”
After two weeks held in this room, Abdul was transferred to a prison in Herat, northwestern Afghanistan, for a further six months, only being released when a friend paid the Taliban the equivalent of $1,200 to bail him out, he said.
His family refused to have him back due to his sexuality being exposed, he said, and he now lives in hiding again, with no support from friends or relatives. “I am still in the Taliban jail, but the only difference is that I am not inside a prison.”
