In a new sign of hope, the Taliban released their first two hostages yesterday. The attention and persuasion is beginning to work--but 19 young people, mostly women, still face execution and the nightmare of captivity.
Over 90,000 of us from 187 countries have rushed to help, and added our voices to an emergency petition, calling on the Taliban to honour their own 'Pashtunwali' code of hospitality by releasing the hostages. This week, we'll spread our message across Afghanistan, by running the petition as a full page ad in a major newspaper, the Killid Weekly. Officials have given us the phone number of the Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusef Ahmadi--so we will also call him to deliver our message directly to the Taliban leadership.
The Killid Weekly ad, and the phone call to Ahmadi, will be more effective the greater our numbers. We need to get well over 100,000 signers in the next 24 hours, and massively grow the petition this week. Please forward this email to as many friends as possible and ask them to sign the petition at the link below:
https://www.avaaz.org/en/honour_the_...p/?cl=15674428