In the fear-filled days after the Taliban stormed into Kabul, she was hailed as the brave young woman who questioned one of the militants on live television.

But days later, like others who feared the militants’ wrath, Behishta Arghand, a former news presenter with Tolo news, fled the country, landing with her parents and four siblings in a sparsely furnished villa in a walled compound on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar.

Arghand, 24, spoke proudly of her interview and said she hoped the Taliban would follow through on their vows to allow more openness than when they ruled the country before the US invasion 20 years ago.

“We don’t have any government now,” she said in an interview. “We just hope they do what they promise. But now everyone is scared of the Taliban.”

Arghand recalled the shock she felt when she learned that the Taliban had entered Kabul, and the fear that gripped the Afghan capital the next day. Still, she said, she went to work to make a point about the role of women in public life.

“I wanted to show the Taliban that we want to work,” she said. “We want to be in the media. It’s our right in society.” Arghand said she was presenting the news on August 17 when she got a feeling that there was a guest in the studio. She soon realised it was Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a member of the Taliban’s media team.

New York Times News Service