{"id":4343,"date":"2014-06-10T10:39:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T08:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=4343"},"modified":"2014-06-10T10:39:16","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T08:39:16","slug":"for-afghan-lovers-joy-is-brief-ending-in-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2014\/06\/for-afghan-lovers-joy-is-brief-ending-in-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"For Afghan Lovers, Joy Is Brief, Ending in Arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: New York Times<\/a>
\nBy JAWAD SUKHANYAR and ROD NORDLANDJUNE 7, 2014
\nKABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 His Juliet thinks she is pregnant with her Romeo\u2019s child.<\/p>\n

So much for the good news.<\/p>\n

Neither is now taking much joy from that, as the escape of this pair of star-crossed Afghan lovers, who eloped in March after her family threatened to kill them, came to an abrupt end on Friday.<\/p>\n

Mohammad Ali, 21, the husband, was captured by six of his male in-laws on a street in downtown Kabul and dragged to a police station. The authorities booked him on a charge of kidnapping, which carries the death penalty in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

A short, slightly built man, Mohammad Ali was easily overpowered by his wife\u2019s brothers and uncles who apparently had been tipped off to the general area where the couple had been hiding. But he defied their angry demands to divulge her whereabouts.<\/p>\n

His wife, Zakia, 18, whom he is accused of kidnapping, was in a house only a few hundred yards from where Mohammad Ali was captured. After learning what had happened, she donned a black abaya, covering everything but her eyes, and fled to try to meet with her father-in-law, Anwar, who supports the couple\u2019s decision to marry for love.<\/p>\n

Zakia and Mohammad Ali fled threats of arrest and death in Afghanistan as a result of their marriage, which crosses cultural boundaries.
\nCreditDiego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
\nIt was a day of high drama. Zakia and Anwar \u2014 whose families both use only first names \u2014 are from farm families in a village in mountainous, isolated Bamian Province and promptly got lost in the sprawling capital city. They could not find each other for hours.<\/p>\n

Throughout the day on Friday, women\u2019s advocates from an organization called Women for Afghan Women pleaded with Zakia and her father-in-law by cellphone, trying to convince them that she should turn herself in to one of the organization\u2019s shelters. She would be safe from attack by her family, they said, as well as from arrest on criminal charges and the risk of sexual abuse in custody, which is common here.<\/p>\n

But she was wary. Women charged with social crimes are protected from arrest while in such government-approved shelters, but they are not allowed to leave until their court cases are resolved \u2014 effectively kept under a form of house arrest while awaiting a possible conviction and prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Zakia\u2019s family members have publicly declared their intention to kill her for dishonoring them by marrying against their wishes and outside their ethnic group; she is a Tajik and her husband is a Hazara. They have accused her of bigamy, as well, claiming she had already been married \u2014 without her consent or presence \u2014 to her father\u2019s nephew.<\/p>\n

Bigamy carries a five- to 15-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n

The charge against Mohammad Ali is more serious, a capital crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know this is a\u00a0love story\"\"<\/a>,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Jamila Bayaz, the police chief of District 1 \u2014 the first female police chief in Afghanistan, whose station initially received Mohammad Ali. \u201cThe boy eloped with a girl who loved him.\u201d But she added that the courts would have to resolve the charges against him. \u201cHigher-level officials told me, \u2018Please make sure he doesn\u2019t escape,\u2019\u00a0\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As his wife and father tried to find each other on Friday, Mohammad Ali sent word via a cousin who visited him in jail and insisted that Zakia should not turn herself in to the women\u2019s shelter. Zakia had previously spent six months in a shelter in Bamian, where, she said, she was treated as a prisoner until she finally escaped last March by climbing over a wall after midnight\u00a0to meet\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Mohammad Ali, who waited outside.<\/p>\n

Shukria Khaliqi, the\u00a0program manager\"\"<\/a>\u00a0at Women for Afghan Women and a successful family lawyer, argued that the shelter was the best option in an obviously dangerous situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can win this case,\u201d she said,\u00a0adding\"\"<\/a>\u00a0that the claims of Zakia\u2019s family were so clearly false that any reasonable court would throw them out. \u201cWe have experience with cases like this, but if they do not legally solve this problem, they will always be in hiding. Their whole life will be spent like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

By nightfall Friday, Anwar and Zakia were together, joined by a reporter who spent several hours with them as they drove around\u00a0the city\"\"<\/a>\u00a0deciding what to do. The father-in-law said he had nowhere to stay in the city where he would not be found by her family; their only option would be to flee into the countryside. Zakia had to go with him because women who are not accompanied by a close male relative can be arrested.<\/p>\n

Anwar, 65, burst into\u00a0tears\"\"<\/a>\u00a0at the thought of the arduous journey ahead. He was too old, he said, and suffered from high blood pressure; he could not climb into the mountains as the young couple had done in their own escape.<\/p>\n

And Zakia was pregnant, he said, and not feeling well herself.<\/p>\n

She did not respond to that revelation; pregnancy is not something that Afghan women would normally discuss in front of strangers.<\/p>\n

Zakia had been crying, too, but stopped then and pulled the abaya and veils off her head. She half-turned so she could address Anwar, who was sitting behind her, directly. She spoke in a strong, calm voice after a day of so many tears that they left streaks on her cheeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle,\u201d she said, using a term of fondness for her father-in-law, \u201cdon\u2019t worry about me. I\u2019ll be safe and I\u2019ll stand by your side and we will get the boy out. I will go to the\u00a0shelter\"\"<\/a>.\u201d She arrived there after 10 p.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0interview\"\"<\/a>\u00a0at the shelter on Saturday, Zakia said that she was relieved that the couple\u2019s months on the run had ended and that she was happy to be in a safe place \u2014 at least until the court case tied to her decision to run away with her husband is decided.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the court, I will say no one kidnapped me, because I went with him by my consent and my own free will,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to\u00a0be with\"\"<\/a>\u00a0this boy the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she remained convinced that her family members planned to kill her if they could. \u201cIf I see my\u00a0father\"\"<\/a>\u00a0and brothers I will tell them, \u2018Whatever has happened, has happened, and it is nothing you can change,\u2019\u00a0\u201d she said. \u201c\u00a0\u2018You cannot change what\u2019s in my heart, so stop trying to do anything about it.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

Her father, Zaman, reached by telephone, insisted that he had no intention of killing his daughter \u2014 and, as proof, noted that his sons who captured Mohammad Ali had taken him to the police instead of taking\u00a0the law\"\"<\/a>\u00a0into their own hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I would kill him, everyone would have blamed me for it,\u201d he said. \u201cAll I want is that the girl should be handed to her first\u00a0husband\"\"<\/a>. Then it is up to him whether he accepts her as his wife or not. If that doesn\u2019t work, I will leave it to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shelter does not allow its residents to have cellphones, so Zakia has so far been unable to talk to\u00a0Mohammad\"\"<\/a>\u00a0Ali.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease\"\"<\/a>,\u201d she said, as a reporter prepared to leave the shelter, \u201ctell him not to worry about me, not to worry that I might say something bad or confess to something. I will tell this: that I have not been kidnapped.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
Correction: June 7, 2014\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article referred\u00a0incorrectly\"\"<\/a>\u00a0to the Hindu Kush. It is a mountain range, not a province.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n