“I do not know if they are still alive,” said AFP Jonathan Reynolds about his parents Peter and Barbie, British detained for six months in Afghanistan without being the subject of legal proceedings.
“Whenever I am asked, I don’t know what to answer else. It is not as if they were in a retirement home. Who will call us if something is happening? The Taliban? ”Asked one of the couple’s four children.
The story of Peter and Barbie Reynolds, respectively 80 and 76, with Afghanistan is a story of two decades, imprint “of love and admiration” for this country, underlines their son during an interview in videoconference from Chicago, where he lives.
But this story turned to drama.
On February 1, the couple was arrested while returning home to Bamiyan province, west of Kabul, with their Sino-American friend Faye Hall.
The latter was released at the end of March. Not Peter and Barbie.
The British, who got married in Kabul in 1970 and also owned Afghan nationality, have been leading an association for many years that has issued education programs to children and women.
“No crime”
However, assures their son, “the judge told them that they were not guilty of any crime. We have been told for months that they will be released, but they have been imprisoned for six months. ”
The couple, against which no charge was retained, was first imprisoned in a high security center, before being transferred at the end of July to Kabul.
UN experts were able to visit them on July 21.
Their observation is clear: for lack of medical care, Peter and Barbie Reynolds could die.
“All their human rights are respected,” said Taliban diplomacy chief Amir Khan Muttaqi, assuring that “care is provided to them”.
Jonathan Reynolds has been without news of his parents since June 15, when he had them on the phone for the last time.
“At the beginning they called us regularly from the telephone booth in the prison court with a prepaid card,” recalls this 45 -year -old man. But telephone calls have stopped.
However, he said he had received from a voice message from his parents, transmitted via UN experts.
“Elderly and sick”
Not enough to reassure it. “My parents are old and sick … I don’t know if they are still alive,” he says.
“My father has heart problems, he has a stent in the chest. He has had skin cancer in the past, ”he lists. “He urgently needs an electrocardiogram and a blood test.”
As for Barbie, it is particularly low, after months “to have one meal a day”, he claims.
The whole siblings has been mobilized since the announcement of their detention. A support site called “Free Peter and Barbie” was created to mobilize British and international public opinion.
A counter recalls their time in detention.
There are also many photos of the couple, documenting their lives in Afghanistan. On one of them, Barbie appears smiling, with a long azure blue veil on the head. Peter is him in traditional Afghan clothes. The couple appear serene.
Their safety? “It was never their primary concern,” says Jonathan Reynolds. “If this had been the case, they would not live in Afghanistan.”
In 2021, when the Taliban took power, they refused to leave, despite a call from the British embassy to leave the country.
“The British authorities have assured us of their support but it is complicated because they do not have a presence in Afghanistan,” said Jonathan Reynolds.
And send a message to the Taliban: “If my parents are not welcome to Afghanistan, then they will leave.”