“For 20 years we defended democracy in Afghanistan”

Farahnaz Sahar Rakin and Gulalai Hotak They are two of the 21 Afghan prosecutors and judges who have arrived in Spain from Islamabad (Pakistan), the country where they fled after the Taliban came to power in August 2021. After a complicated process they obtained international protection, for which it was necessary the intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and legal organizations Medelthe Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF) and 14 Lawers.

For now, these two women and their companions, with the exception of five who have moved to the US and Canada, live in flats managed by the Red Cross in different Spanish cities and are supported by international organizations. EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, from the Prensa Ibérica group, reported its rescue operation and now she offers her testimonies and those of the European jurists who helped them.

Farahnaz Sahar Rakin, Afghan prosecutor

Farahnaz, very grateful for the love she has received from the Spanish since her arrival last December, recalls her beginnings as a prosecutor in Afghanistan twenty years ago I was trying to start a democratic path. “The two decades of international intervention opened many paths for men and women, and with great desire we studied and had many hopes to fulfill through our work, but with the arrival of the taliban all of that was blown away.”

Despite what she might think at first, this woman now states in Spain that she does not regret having made the decision to pursue the difficult career of prosecutor in Afghanistan, and would like to continue it. She recounts the complicated situation in which she and her husband, who was a journalist, found themselves in a country where they stopped having a place when the Taliban regained power. “For 20 years we have dedicated ourselves to defending democracy and human rights in the country and we have acted against this terrorist group, the Taliban,” it states.

Regarding the situation for more than a year in Pakistan, he regrets the mistreatment by the authorities, since they survived on expired visas and in an irregular situation, without the right to healthcare or education for their children. “They always fined us, and if they stopped us there was a great risk that we would be jailed or deported,” Farahnaz points out.

“International society from my point of view has abandoned the Afghan people,” he laments. My plans go through to continue working in what I have formed and to be able to defend Afghan women from Spain“.

Gulalai Hotak (judge)

The judge Gulalai Hotak He had it somewhat easier than his companions, thanks to the political position of one of his brothers in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs before the collapse of Kabul on August 15, 2021. This allowed them to reach Turkey and regularize their situation there before requesting asylum in our country.

This lawyer remembers that her work before the arrival of the Taliban was not easy either, although she is very proud of her work and her independence at that time. He experienced up to ten suicide attacks in his offices, where he continued to practice as a judge despite losing many of his colleagues, the last in an attack just fifty meters from the courts in 2021.

Regrets that, “unfortunately”, the international community has not done anything to help the Afghans who had to leave the country and, regarding their future, understands that is now “in another society” and you will not be able to work as a judge or prosecutor in Spain, although you will try to do so as a lawyer, since the world of law is the one in which it has been prepared. About a future return to Afghanistan, Gulalai wants to be optimistic, but acknowledges that Right now the conditions do not allow even thinking about it. “And it’s very painful”, concludes.

Filipe Marques (Portuguese judge, former president of MEDEL)

Filipe Marques presided over Medel until last December, which brings together 24 organizations of judges and prosecutors from 16 European countries. One of the objectives of this organization since 1985 is to defend the rights of migrants, and before intervening in this operation in Pakistan They had already been providing aid in other territories such as Turkey, where the persecution of sectors of the judiciary and the legal profession has taken place.

The Progressive Union of Prosecutors (UPF), which is part of the organization, contacted them after the fall of Kabul in the summer of 2021 and told them about the mission that 14 Lawers lawyers had already started in Pakistan, for which they decided to cooperate. . Marques regrets that, after an initial situation in which Western governments spoke of “open doors” to welcome Afghans, they began to see that bureaucracy and processes stagnated, and I had to act somehow.

For Marques, helping women in Pakistan goes beyond being a moral obligation. “We are talking about a legal obligation committed to international agreements”he warns, to add that Spain also has to take into account that more than a hundred Spanish lives were lost during the intervention in Afghanistan, to which are added investments in the area of ​​more than 500 million dollars.

“I wonder if he won’t have a duty to respond in front of the whole society for what is happening now thereI think so”, he affirms. A magnificent chance To do so, in his view, is to promote aid, and ensure that it is done jointly by several states, during the Presidency of the European Union from next July 1.

Ignacio Rodríguez Tucho, lawyer

The lawyer Ignacio Rodríguez Tucho, who runs 14 Lawers, “a small independent organization dedicated to support judges, prosecutors and human rights lawyers who work in hostile environments”. This is the person who, together with a group of Spanish and Polish prosecutors and judges, was on the ground last September, on a trip that sought to achieve “a revulsion” to the situation of paralysis in the asylum processes.

The lawyer puts a before and after with respect to the change of leadership in the Spanish diplomatic mission in Pakistan, which José Antonio de Ory has held since last June. Regarding the previous impasse, the new ambassador adopted measures aimed at expediting the asylum processing process.

“The problem we are facing now is that the embassies in Islamabad and Tehran have very few resources and are far from being able to respond to a humanitarian crisis like the one in Afghanistan,” he acknowledges.

“What struck us the most about the trip were the testimonies of the 150 prosecutors with whom we met and especially those of the women, because we found that the situation was dramatic,” he told this newspaper.

“Pakistan is a place that is quite permeable to the Taliban who easily cross the border, to which was added that these women lived threatened and outside of any social structure, there were pregnant women who lost their children because no one attended their delivery in a hospital, they did not have access to healthcare or educational services, they could not work, and they had to be careful that a policeman did not stop them and deport them,” he adds.

In the opinion of Rodrígez Tucho, the response of the embassies in the asylum application processes can be improved and proof of this since the first year of the crisis in Afghanistan, only 700 visas when there are thousands of applications. Like Marques, he believes that Spain should take advantage of its presidency to include on the European agenda “a collective solution to this problem” because they intervened in the occupation and they cannot leave and “forget about the consequences”.

“The future that awaits these women is complicated, you have to be realistic – concludes the lawyer – because they come from a very different culture. Although they are pioneers, they have been in a country where their autonomy was quite limited and they find themselves in a more open society that intimidates them.”

Inés Herreros, president of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors

The UPF representative recounts that they made the decision to travel to Islamabad when they realized that, after a year of collapse in Afghanistan, the jurists who were there were living in an untenable situation. “We had the information and the ability to tell the Ministry and provide solutions, but we were not received”he recalls, for which reason they chose to act “a bit desperate” so that once there they would have to be received by the ambassador.

Once in the Asian country they faced a “tremendously heartbreaking” situation. “Hearing first-hand the testimonies of these women is frightening because It is the level of maximum horror, living inside hell“, says Herrero, who admits that he was struck above all by hearing them say that they should have listened to those who warned them that they should not “join the world of men” as prosecutors and judges.

“They said there was no point in doing it, that it had not had any significance and that the new generations were only going to see that they had put the lives of their parents, siblings, and, most terrible, the lives of their children, at risk,” he adds.

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“The globalized world has a problem with migratory phenomenawe have an atrocious fear and we have to overcome it, understand that international protection is a right that assists us, that tomorrow can happen to us,” says the prosecutor. “There is no real international protection because the norm is not being applied, the governments circumvent and look for strategies to not apply it”, concludes Herreros.

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