Women Folks

Hiding in her basement, a Kunduz radio presenter was paralysed with fear when the Taliban came looking for her as they conducted house-tohouse searches for working women after storming the northern Afghan city. Long condemned as misogynistic zealots, the Taliban have sought to project a softened stance on female rights, but the insurgents` three-day occupation of Kunduz offers an ominous blueprint of what could happen should they ever return to power. Harrowing testimonies have emerged of death squads methodically targeting a host of female rights workers andjournalistsjusthours after the city fell on Sept 28. When they knocked on the radio host`s door, her uncle answered, she told AFP, requesting anonymity due to safety concerns. `We know a woman in your house works in an office,` she said they told him. `When my uncle denied it, he was taken outside and shot dead. His body lay in the streets for days no one dared to go out and get it.` Such testimonies harl Rights groups say female p