Encounters with Afghan refugees, workers, lawyers, and judges
She was in her 70s, a frail woman who had lost her husband and children to the Taliban. She was also dying of cancer. I was in tears as she was testifying in front of me almost 25 years ago, and I was again today, remembering her.
From 1997 until 2004 I was an administrative judge at the Refugee Review Tribunal in Sydney, Australia, and during that time I oversaw many Afghan cases, all of which I accepted. Most were Hazaras, and all had tragic stories which deeply moved me, especially this old woman.
Australian legislation allowed us to dispense with hearings if the matter was clear enough, and I decided to do so immediately after I accepted the old woman’s case, although I believe I was the only judge to exercise this discretion at the time. Unfortunately my appointment was not renewed in 2004 and I believe that dispensing with hearings was probably part of that decision.
During this time I was also a law professor in Sydney. Fast forward to 2014, when my former law faculty dean and I launched the Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers of the International Association of People’s Lawyers. I’m the editor of the multilingual blog, which documents attacks on lawyers. Since then, we have monitored the many attacks in Afghanistan against lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law professors, and law students:
Every year, the Day of the Endangered Lawyers is marked on January 24 as a way to focus attention on lawyers who are arrested, detained, harassed, tortured, disbarred, and even killed because of their work as lawyers. Our committee has actively supported this important day for years. In 2022, I was delighted when lawyers around the world held actions in support of their embattled colleagues in Afghanistan.
Some people affect you very deeply and personally, and the Afghans certainly have affected me. Their suffering, their strength, their resilience, and their determination are overwhelming. When the Taliban came to power three years ago, I was devastated. Coincidentally, at the same time, I was speaking at an online session about the persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan that had been organized by one of my alma maters, the McGill University faculty of law.
I have followed developments since the Taliban takeover with utter horror. Since 2021, I have done what little that I can do to support Afghan lawyers, prosecutors, and judges who are still trying to survive in Afghanistan, as well as those in exile. They are a source of profound inspiration to me.
Since the return of the Taliban, a small part of the international legal community has been mobilized to evacuate and resettle members of the Afghan legal community. The London-based International Bar Association Human Rights Institute and the International Association of Women Judges, based in Washington, D.C., have literally saved the lives of a considerable number of Afghan women judges, women lawyers, and their families. They are to be congratulated. At the same time, frustrating and dangerous delays have been encountered and huge sums of money have had to be raised to carry out these difficult evacuations.
Sadly, Afghan male lawyers and prosecutors have not been so lucky. Many have had to find their own ways to leave the country, and most of the fortunate ones have been stranded in countries like Pakistan and Iran, where they face the threat of deportation to Afghanistan. Both countries have appalling human rights records and are extremely dangerous for Afghans. Some male lawyers, especially prosecutors, have desperately sought the help of our committee. Since we are so small, all we have been able to do is refer them to better-resourced NGOs since we do not have the time or energy to assist them.
In the meantime, we have redoubled our monitoring efforts, which we hope have helped to put pressure on governments and civil society in Europe and North America to help our legal brethren and other Afghans at risk. But dozens of former Afghan prosecutors have been killed or injured over the past three years in Afghanistan, including in a recent suicide bomb attack in Kabul for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.
Tragically, there are hundreds of former Afghan lawyers, prosecutors, and judges still in Afghanistan who are the most at serious risk of harm.
I have been in close contact with three Afghan lawyers and have tried my best to support them. One currently lives in Canada and has valiantly struggled to get the other Afghan lawyers to Canada, but has faced endless and frustrating delays as long delays are endemic in all immigration matters.
Another lawyer now lives with her family in France, and I have spent time with them several times. Her husband was an orthopedic surgeon in Afghanistan but could only find working as a cleaner in a fast food restaurant in France. The local legal community has embraced them, found them an apartment, and helped them resettle.
The last is a recent law graduate still living in Afghanistan. She is stuck in a kind of limbo, unable to become a lawyer because of the Taliban’s restrictions on working women. Meanwhile, she teaches young girls and publishes widely to tell the world about the plight of Afghan girls and women in particular. I try my best to mentor her and give her the strength to go on, but I am very worried about her and her bleak future. Recent reports about the deaths by suicide of young Afghan women horrify me.
I hope that the road to a post-Taliban secular Afghanistan will not be long, painful, and violent. In the meantime, we will continue to give our support, our solidarity and our love to the people of Afghanistan. The memory of that dying old Afghan woman in Sydney will live on.
Stuart Russell was born and grew up in Vancouver and was a human rights lawyer in Montreal in the 1980s.
