The Line of Fire with Ramita Navai

Shoaib Sharifi (part two) : Your head will be chopped after 4 o’ clock today. I felt, tasted and smelt death, and I cried

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Episode notes

Part two: Shoaib talks about being captured by the Taliban, surviving two near executions, forming a bond with his captors, and how and why he stopped his fellow prisoners from killing their Taliban jailers.

Shoaib has been covering his home country for the last 22 years. He's a former BBC World Service Kabul bureau chief who launched the acclaimed political debate program Open Jirga (a co-production between BBC Media Action and BBC World Service).

Shoaib is one of the few Afghan journalists who decided to stay on after the Taliban took power in August, 2021, and he's currently the country director for BBC media action, the BBC’s international development organisation.    Show Notes:

• Watch Shoaib’s BAFTA winning documentary My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan on ITV Hub
• The film won BAFTA Single Documentary award 2022 and is produced by Seventh Art Productions
• Follow Shoaib on Twitter @shoaibsharifi1