The Rainbow Refugee Podcast - Episode 1: Lost and (Not)Found, Part 1
17 August 2022
Part one of our first episode, Lost and (Not)Found, features Shahriyar (not his real name), a 21-year-old gay man from Herat, who talks about the continuing threats against LGBTIQ Afghans under Taliban rule and reflects on the urgency of activism amid heightened persecution. This episode is hosted by Zohra Mousavi, our Afghanistan Special Programme coordinator.
This episode is in Dari, and English transcriptions are available below. See the announcement page for news on episode releases.
Listen below:
Content Warning: Homophobia, transphobia, sexual violence, gender-based violence, stalking or harassment, abuse, harm to a child, and death.
English transcription
The original Dari recording has precedence over the English translations.
Host: Zohra Mousavi (Host)
Guest: Shahriyar Mandegar (SM)
Host
Hi, Shahriyar.
SM
Hi.
Host
This is not the first time you and I have met, but for those who are listening to us for the first time, can you tell them who Shahriyar is?
SM
Shahriyar is a member of the Afghan LGBTIQ community who didn’t know anything about the community for a long time in his life.
SM
After I did my own research, I realised that I was gay, but I also found out that most men that I knew who were attracted to the same sex had no idea what being gay was. They understood being gay as belonging to the “people of Lut”: people that were punished by God. This kind of thinking was planted by Islam in their minds.
SM
I didn’t know anything about being queer until I was in the 11th grade. The first thing I googled was “what does it mean to be attracted to the same sex?”. My search turned up results about“being LGBTIQ”. I didn’t really understand what that meant. When I searched more, I learned that every word of LGBTIQ stands for something, and that it’s a family.
SM
When I looked up the Islamic sources, they all were saying that queer people must be killed and that they are God’s punishment, that homosexuality is a crime, that it must not be promoted in an Islamic society, and that there is no place for it in Islam.
Host
So when you were researching on the Internet, you got one message, and when you went offline, you got another?
SM
My search on Google brought up different definitions of homosexuality, with a few from Islamic sources. These definitions I didn’t believe, but they made me realise that being gay is more dangerous in the society I was living.
As far as I knew, there was no activist who would inform us of these things or advocate for us in the media. There was no one to tell me that people who are attracted to the same sex are part of the LGBTIQ community. After that, there was some awareness-raising. When I told some friends that they might be LGBTIQ, they laughed at me, saying, “yes, it’s true we are attracted to the same sex, but how’s that linked to being LGBTIQ?”
My teacher kicked me out of the classroom a few times because when he interpreted the Quran, I would oppose some parts because humanity should not turn to a religion that promotes radicalism and encourages people to kill others.
When I understood my sexual orientation, I did not tell my family about it because they are very religious. It’s funny that sometimes they would ask me to become a “mullah” (religious scholar/figure). My father played an important role during the civil war, so people looked up to us. When I realised (that I was gay), I never wanted to come out to anyone because I knew what would happen. When I used to talk to people and friends about the LGBTIQ community, they really hated it. They would say that gay people must be beheaded. Just imagine, when a young boy that goes to school has this kind of thinking, what should I expect from a mullah in a mosque or educated people? These are the people who teach young boys those ideas which have helped radicalism to grow. In Muslim countries, people have killed others and violated others’ privacy in the name of religion. There’s also a higher incidence of violations of women’s rights in these countries.
Host
And femicide.
SM
Yes, and femicide. I had a sister, and one time her hijab was slightly off. My friend warned me about it, asking what I thought about it. I replied it was not important, and if she wished not to wear any hijab, she had the right to do so. “Is that a crime?” I’d ask him. He pressed again and wanted to fight with me over it. Just imagine, if one person can do this, how can I stand up to him or my family to tell them that I am gay and explain what it means? One time it hurt me so much – and I saw it with my own eyes – that a son started beating his mother because she was old and couldn’t wear her scarf correctly.
Host
Let’s fast forward to a few years later after you realised that you are gay. What changed in your life?
SM
I’ve seen good things. I’ve seen bad things. I was under so much pressure because I was all alone and had no one who supported me.
Host
Not even family or…
SM
Nobody. Even my friends would watch how I did things or how I talked. And as days went by, they distanced themselves from me even more. So I created a few fake Facebook pages and invited those who had told me before that they were attracted to the same sex. Through these pages, I also connected to people who didn’t know what being LGBTIQ meant. When I started chatting with them, I realised that their ideologies were very backward. They would tell me that they were only looking for “bacha” (a young adolescent male or boy).
Host
Which is a completely different topic.
SM
Of course, it (bacha bazi) is a very different topic. I chatted with some trans persons that also said they were looking for a “bacha” who could make them happy. I used to get a lot of opposition to the information that I would circulate on these pages. There was a lot of pressure on me, too, because I was young. All this made me very depressed, but I didn’t surrender because if I decided that I will do something, I will not give up until I die. Although people would advise me to stop and even if I had a big family that's well-known in the society. I would reply that it’s not a crime to want to learn and get to know myself.
After being on Facebook, I got many followers/fans. Back then, I wasn’t thinking right, so I used to upload photos of myself, and some bach baz also were looking for me. It was to the extent that I couldn’t safely go out because it was so easy to be recognised.
In Herat, when I got to know a few trans persons and sat down with them, I saw they looked very feminine to me. I asked them if they were girls or boys and they said they wished to be girls. That’s when I told them that they are members of the LGBTIQ community, that they were trans and should accept who they are. They did accept it and were so happy to learn their true identity.
I encouraged them to learn more about being trans on the internet, but they had no money. They barely survived and had to work as sex workers to stay alive. Their family had kicked them out of their houses because their family thought that they were staining the family’s image. Their family believed God had made a mistake, and their trans children were condemned to die. Only their mothers protected them from the fathers telling their children that they must leave home or they would be killed. Their families would remind them that they should correct themselves to be either girls or boys.
God created these children, and if their families were true believers, they wouldn’t reject their children.
So when I was sitting with these trans persons, we were in a park, and bystanders were staring at us. The trans persons had very old and worn-out clothes on. Most of them used to find food from the trash bins. They couldn’t go to school too, and if they did, everyone, from the principal to the teacher to other students, would bully them. In my school, a teacher raped a boy. It doesn’t make sense that a teacher rapes a child, but they call gay people sinners.
Anyway, I kept doing what I was doing, and at that point, I didn’t care if my family found out about me. I said to myself that I would go on because every battle demands a sacrifice. Some people must sacrifice themselves for society to understand what they are and have.
The LGBTIQ community in Europe has made so many sacrifices. Many died. Many bled until they could raise their flag and say their names and that they are here, that they are humans too and as humans, they have a right to live, and that they are the same as everyone else.
Today the things I know and say are from all the information that I gathered since the 11th grade. Most people, however, were surprised about how much I knew at a young age. One time, I asked a teacher what being LGBTIQ means. He smiled, and even though he was very well read and had few books published, he said that being queer means being a member of the people of Lut, and they would be met with divine punishment. He also said I must stay away from it because it’s a horrible thing. After he told me that, I became more irritated, and sometimes when I get angry, it’s because I am depressed.
In Afghanistan, Facebook was very popular. Slowly, I saw that LGBTIQ persons also started using Facebook more, they would create fake accounts and follow each other, but they only knew that they were LGBTIQ. Some only knew that they were transgender or gay. They didn’t have much information but tried to accept what they had learned.
I knew that bacha bazi was common in Herat, Kabul and Mazar e Sharif and any other provinces, but there seemed to be only information about bacha bazi.
Host
For those who might not be familiar, can you tell us what “bacha bazi” (slang term in some parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan for a custom in Afghanistan involving child sexual abuse by older men of young adolescent males or boys, called dancing boys, often involving sexual slavery and child prostitution) is and how it differs from being LGBTIQ? Because when you and I talk about the LGBTIQ community, we are not talking about bacha bazi.
SM
Bacha bazs (plural form of “bacha baz”: the older men who sexually abuses young adolescent males or boys) are different from gays. LGBTIQ relationships are always consensual. Bacha bazs coerce a person, rape, and exploit them in the sense that they pimp a person as a sex slave, charging for every night. Some who have money, go to the families that are financially struggling and buy their very young boys. They take these boys to parties and force them to dance.
Host
So in a way, one of the challenges was a lack of access to information?
SM
Yes, there isn’t enough information. There isn’t any discussion about LGBTIQ persons either. Only bacha bazi is very common in the country, and it is known among people.
Host
Shahriyar, you talked about your life before the Taliban took control again, and this podcast will be released almost a year from that day. Can you tell me what changed after the Taliban came to power again?
SM
There were so many changes in my life. The lives of all queer people became a living hell. During the republic, we were so active on social media, but I found out that some online users were identifying the queer people. They did whatever it took to be introduced to a queer person, see a photo of them, meet them and put them under surveillance. On many occasions, my Facebook pages were closed, and I started receiving threatening messages that I was under surveillance.
Host
In the early days of the takeover?
SM
Yeah. The messages would say, "we are looking for you, my dear”. When I saw the word “my dear,” I suspected this person was one of my friends because that’s what my friends used to call me. I thought that if the Taliban came down from the hills, how would they access this kind of intelligence? I realised that some of my friends used to work for the Taliban because when the Taliban took control, some people joined them.
Host
From the queer community?
SM
Yeah. Some trans persons were detained, and somehow I think they were killed. They disappeared. In Herat, six trans persons are missing.
Host
And there is no news of them until today?
SM
Nothing. I started getting threats that I would be arrested if I didn’t close my Facebook pages, that if I did anything, they would behead me in front of my family, and that my family would be okay with it because they would know that I was committing a crime. After this, I left Herat for Kabul. But when I got there, the government had collapsed and people were trying to escape.
