User:Geo Swan/Caitlin Coleman
Caitlin Coleman is an American woman, from Pennsylvania, who was kidnapped and spent almost five years as a captive by a branch of the Taliban.[1][2][3] Coleman and her husband, Joshua Boyle,wer traveling in Afghanistan, as part of a trip around the world, when they were kidnapped by elements of the Haqqani Network, a few days after their last email home, on October 8, 2012.
Contents
Early life
Coleman was born and raised in rural Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, a town of slightly more than 2000 people.[1] Her parents, Roman Catholics, home-schooled her.
According to Holly Otterbein, a young woman who knows Coleman from growing up in Stewartstown with her, she has a liver condition that requires regular medical treatment.[1]
Marraige to Boyle
Coleman, a fan of the Star Wars films, met Boyle online, while discussing the films. According to Coleman and Boyle had a relationship prior to his brief first marraige to Zaynab Khadr, the outspoken oldest sibling of Guantanamo captives Abdurahman Khadr and Omar Khadr. Boyle's marraige to Khadr was brief. They married in late 2009 or early 2010, and were divorced by early 2011.
Coleman and Boyle renewed their relationship, and married in 2011.
One further thing Coleman and Boyle had in common is their strong opposition to the aborting of children.
Trip around the world
Coleman's husband Boyle, is a Canadian citizen, and the pair decided to take an extended trip around the world, while Boyle's right to live and work in the United States was resolved. The pair first travelled through Central America, where they described stopping and volunteering at various charities along their route.[4] The New York Post reported they spent four months in Guantemala, before traveling to Asia, where they visited Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, before finally entering Afghanistan. Family members said they were surprised that they traveled to Afghanistan, which had not been on the itinerary they shared before they set out.
The couple then visited several Islamic countries in central Asia.
Capture, captivity, and freedom
Capture
Little is known about how the pair were captured.
Pregnancy
Coleman was visibly pregnant, when she was captured. Most sources say she expected to give birth in December. Boyle delivered three children during their time in captivity, holding a flashlight in his mouth.
The pair describe an additional child being murdered by their captors. Boyle is a experienced webmaster, and writer, with a degree in journalism, and their captors wanted him to agree to work to help them improve their public image - a request Boyle refused. The pair describe their captors using brutal, cruel measures to retaliate. They described guards raping Coleman to punish Boyle. They also describe how guards delivered a high dose of estrogen to Coleman, that induced delivery of a stillborn child, to retaliate. Unknown to his captors Boyle had some fluency in their language, and overheard guards describe this murder attempt.
Captivity
The pair, and the children born to them, were kept under very primitive conditions, often detained underground, in the dark, in wet cavities not much larger than a phone booth.
The pair were moved dozens of times, during their captivity.
Newsweek magazine reported that Coleman said that homeschooling their children was the one positive aspect of their captivity.[2]
After she arrived in Canada Coleman described using British history to try to help prepare her children cope if her captors were to execute her and her husband in front of them.[5] She described how they made up a game for their oldest son, Noah, where he would pretend to be Oliver Cromwell, chasing Charles II, in order to behead him.
Letters and videos
Their captors recorded and released three videos, during their captivity, which their family and friends found very alarming.[6] Both Coleman and Boyle had lost alarming amounts of weight. Listeners could hear the clink of the shackles their captors used to bind them. Coleman and Boyle's captors forced them to beg for their lives, informing listeners their captors planned to kill the whole family if the Afghan government didn't release senior members of the Haqqani Network.
Coleman and Boyle were able to convey information in their letters and video that were too subtle for their captors to understand.[7] In one letter they referred to playing "beautiful life" with their children, which their family concluded was a reference to the 1997 film Life is Beautiful, where a prisoner in a World War 2 Nazi concentration camp, where he tries to convince his young son that all the brutality and other harsh conditions are simply a game the guards and prisoners are playing with one another. film
Freedom
Coleman and her family were freed on October 12, 2017. The initial account of how the captives were freed had all five of them confined in the trunk of a car, so they could be transported from Afghanistan to Pakistan. According to the initial account, heroic Pakistani commandos were able to immobilize the vehicle, by firing on its tires, without seriously injuring any of the captives. This firefight was described as occuring the first time the captors had tried to transport the family into Pakistan.
Coleman and Boyle would later dispute this account, saying they were not freed at the border, and that they had spent most of their captivity in Pakistan.
Some press accounts described Boyle refusing to board a US plane that was going to fly them to Bagram. But Boyle would later say he only wanted to make sure he and his family took the most direct route home.
Arrival in Canada
Coleman and her family were flown to Ottawa, Ontario, and initially stayed in Boyle's parent's nearby home.
Press accounts described the enormous adjustment experienced by the children, who had never met anyone, outside their family, who was not an enemy, had never seen a real toy, and had never met any other children.
Approximately a week after her arrival in Canada Coleman was taken to a local hospital, and spent close to a week in intensive care. The press was asked to respect her privacy, and no explanation has been provided for her stay.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's meeting with Coleman and Boyle
In late December, 2017, pictures appeared on the family's twitter feed, showing Coleman, Boyle and their children, meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his Parliament Hill office. Trudeau has a general policy of letting the public know who is scheduled tomeet with him, but the family's visit wasn't in his public appointment book, nor did his office make any comment about the visit, at the time. Some elements of the press were critical of Trudeau, and his staff, for meeting with Boyle, because of his first marraige to outspoken Zaynab Khadr.
Comments on the charges against her husband
On January 1, 2018, Coleman's husband Boyle was arrested, and faced fifteen charges, including sexual assault, and forcible confinement.[8][9][10] A publication ban prevents describing the alleged crimes, or identifying the alleged victims, but Coleman sent a statement about the charges to the Toronto Star. She said the trauma Boyle endured should be blamed for his acts.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Holly Otterbein (2016-10-22). "When the Taliban Takes the Girl Next Door". Phillymag. http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/10/22/caitlan-coleman-taliban-joshua-boyle/. Retrieved 2018-01-09. "She’s talking about a video of Caitlan that surfaced online this August — the third clip of the couple that’s emerged. In it, Julia’s friend is in a hijab, pleading for her life."
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Jack Moore (2017-10-23). "Freed Taliban Hostage Caitlin Coleman Reveals the One Good Thing About Her Family's Captivity". Newsweek magazine. http://www.newsweek.com/freed-taliban-hostage-caitlin-coleman-one-positive-capture-690371. Retrieved 2018-01-09. "A Taliban-linked organization known as the Haqqani Network kidnapped the pair when they were backpacking through Afghanistan in 2012. They were held for almost five years, during which time they sought to educate their three children, especially the eldest, four-year-old Najaeshi Jonah Boyle."
- ↑ James Gordon Meek (2021-07-27). "Jim Coleman, father of ex-Taliban hostage, was a man of honor: Reporter's Notebook". ABC News. Archived from the original on 2021-07-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20210728003621/https://abcnews.go.com/US/jim-coleman-father-taliban-hostage-man-honor-reporters/story?id=78998031. Retrieved 2021-07-28. "Jim, a Ph.D. botanist who had worked for NASA, died July 16 in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, at the age of 75, said his wife Lynda. Originally from Chicago, he moved to Falls Church, Virginia, for high school and received a BA in history from Loyola University, an MS in ecology from the University of Tennessee, and a doctorate from the University of Florida."
- ↑ Isabel Vincent (2018-01-06). "The puzzling case of a former Taliban hostage charged with sex assault". New York Post. https://nypost.com/2018/01/06/the-puzzling-case-of-a-former-taliban-hostage-charged-with-sex-assault/. Retrieved 2018-01-10. "After Central America, the couple flew to Russia, making their way to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, according to family members."
- ↑ Ashifa Kassam. "Canadian American family on surviving Taliban captivity: 'We tried to make it fun'". The Guardian (Toronto). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/20/canadian-american-family-on-surviving-taliban-captivity-we-tried-to-make-it-fun. Retrieved 2018-01-10. "They turned to British history, teaching him about Oliver Cromwell and the execution of Charles I in 1649. 'So he had great fun pretending to be Oliver Cromwell chasing Charles I around and trying to behead him because he wouldn’t sign the paperwork, wouldn’t sign the laws,' she said. 'So we made it a game so that he wasn’t afraid.'"
- ↑ Yochi Dreazen (2017-02-06). "This American woman has given birth to 2 children while being held hostage in Afghanistan. Why is the family still there?". Vox. https://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/6/14213740/taliban-afghanistan-american-hostage-coleman-trump-military-children-isis-terrorism-haqqani-obama. Retrieved 2018-01-09.
- ↑ "They met their grandsons in a Taliban hostage video". Metro News. 2016-12-21. http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/12/21/they-met-their-grandsons-in-a-taliban-hostage-video.html. Retrieved 2018-01-09. "Josh described this to us in a letter as play acting the film Life is Beautiful, pretending their signs of captivity are just part of a game they are playing with the guards and captors,” they wrote."
- ↑ Michelle Shephard, Alex Ballingall (2018-01-02). "Joshua Boyle, Canadian hostage in Afghanistan, arrested and faces list of charges in Ottawa". Toronto Star (Ottawa). https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/01/02/joshua-boyle-canadian-hostage-in-afghanistan-arrested-and-faces-list-of-charges-in-ottawa.html. Retrieved 2018-01-10. "'Obviously, he is responsible for his own actions,' she wrote, 'but it is with compassion and forgiveness that I say I hope help and healing can be found for him. As to the rest of us, myself and the children, we are healthy and holding up as well as we can.'"
- ↑ Violet Powell (2018-01-06). "Wife blames trauma for assault charges against former Taliban hostage Newburgh Gazette". Newburgh Gazette. http://newburghgazette.com/2018/01/06/wife-blames-trauma-for-assault-charges-against-former/. Retrieved 2018-01-10. "Over their five years in captivity, the family was moved between 23 different locations within 50 kilometres of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and spent time in both countries."
- ↑ Tamar Lapin (2018-01-03). "Wife blames trauma for assault charges against former Taliban hostage". New York Post. https://nypost.com/2018/01/03/wife-blames-trauma-for-assault-charges-against-former-taliban-hostage/. Retrieved 2018-01-10. "'I can’t speak about the specific charges, but I can say that ultimately it is the strain and trauma he was forced to endure for so many years and the effects that that had on his mental state that is most culpable for this,' Boyle’s wife, Caitlin, said in a statement to the Toronto Star."
