Beneath the Veil

Since the Muslim fundamentalist leaders of the Taliban took power in Afghanistan's capital Kabul in the 1990s, they were the source of great controversy, regarding their treatment of non-Muslims, woman, children, and anyone caught committing an act which was regarded as un-Islamic. Reporter Saira Shah, producer/director Cassian Harrison and cameraman James Miller travelled into some of the major cities of Afghanistan, and then to more remote districts where resistance was still active, to talk to ordinary people, to see how the Taliban regime affected their lives. After an overt trip, in which the men were briefly arrested, Saira undertook a covert trip, using her contacts in RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Woman of Afghanistan, to discover what life was like as a forcibly veiled woman in Afghanistan. The programme contains footage captured by RAWA's undercover photographers and camera operators, of executions at a converted UN-funded football ground, of adulteresses and other Afhans convicted of un-Islamic behaviour.