With New Zealand keeping its borders closed due to COVID restrictions, pregnant journalist Charlotte Bellis has been stuck outside her home country, forced to ask the Taliban for help.
WEB DESK
New Zealand journalist Charlotte Bellis has said she is stuck in Afghanistan after the New Zealand government rejected her emergency application for return over coronavirus restrictions. Left without an option, she was forced to seek refuge in Taliban-led Afghanistan as a “pregnant, unmarried woman,” Bellis said in an open letter published by The New Zealand Herald on Friday.
Bellis formerly worked for Al-Jazeera, which is based in Qatar. She had been covering the fallout of last summer’s Taliban takeover from Afghanistan before she returned to Qatar in September. She said this was the time when she learned she was pregnant. As extramarital sex is illegal in Qatar, Bellis attempted to get back to New Zealand using a lottery-style system for returning citizens.
Unable to secure her return in that manner, she left Qatar for Belgium, the home country of her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek. With her New Zealand passport, however, she was only allowed to spend a limited time in Belgium. The couple was eventually forced to relocate to Afghanistan as they both had valid visas to stay there.
Bellis said she set up a meeting with her senior Taliban contacts and asked if her pregnancy would be a problem. She was told it would not.
“Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry,” the Taliban officials said, according to Bellis.
Questioning New Zealand’s treatment of its citizens
Bellis, known for asking the Taliban about their treatment of women, said she has now been forced to ask the New Zealand government the same questions.
“I am writing this because I believe in transparency and I believe that we as a country are better than this. [Prime Minister] Jacinda Ardern is better than this,” Bellis wrote, explaining that she sent 59 documents to New Zealand authorities before her application for an emergency return was rejected.