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Taliban subject drug addicts to brutal rehab, fierce beatings, and forced labour
Matin Mehrab and Azada authored this report for the Zan Times in Persian, and it was translated into English by Rustam Seerat.
Massoud* was a relapsed drug addict, who would spend his days picking through trash for soda bottles, cans, and plastic which he could sell to buy heroin when the Taliban forced him into rehab. The 35-year-old was rounded up with five other addicts in downtown Herat as part of the Taliban’s campaign to tackle Afghanistan’s drug epidemic by moving addicts off the streets, into rehabilitation centres, and eventually into paid work.
Massoud was taken to a facility in Karukh district, Herat province — one of 28,000 Afghans the Taliban say have undergone treatment for their drug addiction since August 2021.
Inside the facility, Massoud found hundreds of emaciated shaven-headed addicts. They lay shivering in dirty beds and writhing in pain from the forced withdrawal from heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs. Their misery was compounded by being fed only scraps of food and ferocious beatings by Taliban guards using whips, sticks and rifle butts.
Massoud somehow survived rehab, and after two months was ready to be discharged. But…
