The images are disturbing. The actions are unimaginable. The bravery is indescribable…

All kinds of emotions rest on the shoulders of one courageous woman named Saira Shah. In a television documentary called ‘Beneath the Veil,’ Shah goes deep into Afghanistan and deep into human emotion. For anyone, this journey would be perilous, but for Shah the journey is personal. She grew up listening to her father tell stories of his native land in Afghanistan, and Shah found herself longing for the day when she might be able to visit what had been described as a beautiful haven. The gardens, greenery and architecture he had described were quite different from what she found. Instead, she found a country riddled with hate and laced with injustice.

The first images of her documentary show veiled-women, frightened and hunched in the back of a pick-up truck and a football stadium turned into a public execution arena. These women have been accused of the crime of adultery – the film, which shows their execution before a stadium packed with people, was bravely taken ‘beneath their veil’ by RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women in Afghanistan. These types of atrocities brought to life daily under the Taliban seem to further Shah’s desire to expose this culture.

As Shah’s journey continues, she encounters countless numbers of impoverished and repressed people. Some are desperate to tell their story to someone who will listen, while others turn their heads in shame, unwilling to speak a word. Those who do share their words provide a chilling reality check—these are real people with real thoughts and dreams, hopes and fears. Shah encounters a woman grinding moldy bread (originally sold by the handful for animal seed) into a powdery substance just to have something to feed her starving children. Not allowed to hold a job under the Taliban, women must beg for these small bits of food. Many children in Afghanistan have lost parents and relatives when the Taliban overtook their villages and ransacked their homes. The hollow tears of these children tell a story all their own. The sheer poverty these citizens live in is no ordinary Third World poverty; it is one created by the Taliban.