A man has been held by the Taliban in jail for nearly two months as his wife speaks of her fears for his life.
Journalist Mortaza Behboudi has been languishing in prison since January 7, two days after he arrived in his native Afghanistan on a reporting trip.
His wife of two years Aleksandra Mostovaja tells The Mirror she is deeply worried about her husband's wellbeing and the lack of information they are getting is only mounting her concerns.
She said: "I'm worried for his physical state, I'm worried for him for his psychological and mental state. I'm worried about how long this will take and if he will be released.
"The uncertainty of this situation is really, really killing me."
After being held in a Kabul prison for 11 days for not having press accreditation (he was on his way to collect it), Mr Behboudi was transferred to another prison and is now said to be accused of spying.
However, Ms Mostovaja tells The Mirror all the information they are receiving about his charges is from indirect sources: "Friends tell me he was accused of spying, but I have no evidence of this.
"And the Taliban have not said anything about why they're holding him. Nothing."
Ms Mostovaja said they tried "every single strategy" with French authorities and other aid organisations to get him out without attention from the press, but it fell on deaf ears.
So in February, a month after his detention, they decided to go public to raise awareness and put pressure on the Taliban.
A joint statement by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and journalists at several leading French news outlets called on the Taliban to “end this senseless situation”.
The Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed to VOA News that he was being detained by the directorate of intelligence.
"The detail of the case has not been shared yet," the spokesperson said. "But he is fine and he was treated well.”
The first and last time Ms Mostovaja spoke with Mortaza following his detention was on January 26 in a call which lasted one minute.
"I could hear someone in the room talking behind him. He was just telling me: 'Don't worry. Tell my family I'm okay.' But at the same time, I could hear in his voice that he was about to cry.
"But I know he could not tell me anything because this other person in the room, so it was just a phone call to know he was alive at the time."
Behboudi and his family are Hazaras, an ethnic group native to, and primarily residing in the Hazaristan region in central Afghanistan.
His wife fears this may be a factor in his detainment: "I cannot say for certain but it's definitely again, a factor that just makes everything more difficult and more worried."
An Amnesty International investigation found that the Taliban tortured and executed Hazaras in a targeted attack in June of last year.
It said: "The attack is part of a wider pattern of unlawful targeted killings of people whom the Taliban perceives as adversaries, in this case being both members of the Hazara community and those who were associated with the former Afghan government."
Behboudi's family moved to Iran to escape Taliban rule when he was a child and in 2015 when he requested asylum in France after being threatened for his journalism.
At that time, Behboudi had been living and working in Afghanistan, where he had returned in 2012 to attend university.
Since the militant group seized power in August 2021, the Taliban have briefly detained a handful of foreign journalists, including Foreign Policy magazine columnist Lynne O’Donnell and the American filmmaker Ivor Shearer.
And for the first time in over a decade, Afghanistan featured on the annual census of jailed reporters, published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Ms Mostovaja shares a litany of concerns which have been consuming her mind for the last 53 days: "I don't know his condition, if he is healthy or how he's treated. I cannot understand what the Taliban are thinking, why they're having him or what decisions they will make."
She says strength and hope are getting her through, with the French authorities saying she should be confident they will see his release.
