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From Our Own Correspondent

Disappeared: The Women Gone Missing in Afghanistan's Prisons

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

First hand reports from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Estonia, Lebanon and the German village of Oberammergau. Taliban promises to respect women's rights seem to be fading. Reports have emerged of Afghan women being arrested for alleged “moral crimes,” and thrown in prison without charge. Ramita Navai managed to get into one of the prisons where these women are being held. Cambodia has some of the greatest Buddhist sites in the world, but many of these have suffered at the hand of looters. As Celia Hatton discovered, some of this theft has occurred very recently. Estonia is attempting to win over its Russian-speaking minority. One third of the country speak Russian as their first language, and in some regions, almost everyone does. Could Vladimir Putin use an alleged attack on Russian speakers’ rights as an excuse to intervene? Estonia's innovative strategy is to offer them a series of fun events in the Estonian language, which Lucy Ash went to watch. The politics of Lebanon are complex, and often bitterly divided. Lebanon held an election last weekend, against a backdrop of economic collapse. Leila Molana-Allen found many voters hoping that this time round, change may be afoot, although predictable cynicism was also evident. This year, there is a new donkey for the Oberammergau Passion Play. In a tradition going back to the Seventeenth Century, two thousand residents of this small village in Bavaria present the tale of Jesus Christ and the crucifixion, for one season, every decade. Obergammerau has once again welcomed spectators to what is a unique performance. Adrian Bridge went to meet the cast.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

0:05.2

Religion weaves its way and to many of our pieces today.

0:09.1

In Afghanistan, our correspondent finds that women have been disappearing into the country's

0:14.0

prison system for alleged infringements of a strict Islamic code.

0:19.6

Ancient religious artifacts have gone missing in Cambodia, where on the trail.

0:24.9

How to encourage Estonia's native Russian speakers to learn Estonian?

0:30.0

Offer them plenty of fun in the language seems to be the answer.

0:34.4

Lebanon's different religious factions have been jockeying for position in a parliamentary

0:39.0

election.

0:40.0

We hear from some optimistic voters.

0:43.0

And 2,000 villagers in Germany are putting on their traditional performance of the crucifixion,

0:48.6

the Oberamagau passion play.

0:51.2

First, the Taliban promises were very clear.

0:54.8

When the Islamist insurgents took over Afghanistan in August last year, they insisted that women's

1:00.8

rights would be respected.

1:02.9

That women could continue working, for example, and going to university.

1:07.7

The suggestion was that they would not suffer the kind of repression which characterized

1:12.3

the Taliban's previous period of rule in the 1990s.

1:16.8

Now though, women in Afghanistan have been told they're expected to stay at home, and

1:22.5

that should they emerge, they must be covered from head to toe, and be accompanied by a

1:27.9

male guardian for longer journeys.

1:31.0

But reports have also emerged of Afghan women disappearing, arrested for alleged moral

...

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