The librarian who defied the Taliban

Wahida Amiri worked as an ordinary librarian before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last August. But when the militants started to strip women of their rights, she became one of the leading voices against them. She told the BBC's Sodaba Haidare how protesting against Taliban rule led to her arrest and why she decided to leave her country.

The Taliban said I was a spy. That I had helped start an uprising against them. That I went onto the streets and protested just to get fame. "Go home and cook", said one of them.

But the truth is, I only wanted one thing: equal rights for Afghan women. The right to go to school, to work, to be heard. Is that too much to ask for?

The day they came to arrest us, an eerie silence had fallen over Kabul. In recent days a number of women who had protested against the Taliban had been taken, so we were moved to a safe house.

In the last few months since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, I had been a strong and proud woman, marching through the streets to protest against them. I looked them in the eye and said: "You can't treat me like a second class citizen. I'm a woman and I'm your equal." Now, I'm hiding in this unknown place, not knowing my crime but wondering if they'll come for me.

Suddenly, tires came screeching and broke to a halt outside the building. I couldn't count the number of cars or soldiers. It seemed they had come prepared to arrest a whole village and not just a few women marching to live freely in their own country.

When they barged into the room, in the middle of all my friends' screams and panic I could hear them say: "Have you got Wahida Amiri, have you found her? Where is she":[]}