LONDON: An elderly British couple arrested by Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have been separated and moved to a high-security prison, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are in their 70s, were detained last month with an American friend, Faye Hall, as they traveled to their home in central Bamyan province.
Their daughter Sarah Entwistle described her parents’ alleged transfer to a heavily guarded prison in an undisclosed location as a “shocking escalation,” the Sunday Times reported.
In particular she expressed concern for the health of her father who will turn 80 in April.
She said that according to information provided by a “reliable source” he had been “beaten and shackled.”
He was in “immense pain” and her mother, 75, had been told she could no longer see him.
“We hear he now has a chest infection, a double eye infection and serious digestive issues due to poor nutrition. Without immediate access to necessary medication, his life is in serious danger,” she told the Sunday Times.
“Our desperate appeal to the Taliban is that they release them to their home, where they have the medication he needs to survive,” she added.
The Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, have run school training programs in the south Asian country for 18 years.
They remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 when the British embassy withdrew its staff.
Following their arrest on February 1, the couple’s home had been ransacked and staff questioned over whether there was a missionary component to the training, the report said.
The suggestion is strongly denied by the staff and family.
The Taliban’s interior ministry has confirmed the detention of two Britons, a Chinese-American and their Afghan translator arrested “based on certain considerations.”
“Efforts are underway to resolve this issue,” a spokesperson said in late February, without identifying the detainees.
Taliban leaders swept back to power in 2021 ousting the US-backed government and implementing a strict interpretation of Islamic law, despite promises not to return to the brutality displayed when they ruled in the 1990s.
They have since imposed broad restrictions on women and girls, barring them from education beyond the age of 12 and squeezing them out of jobs and public life with rules the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid.”