Jamal Naik sounds sad, his voice skips now and then. A deep sigh or a gasp for breath. The line between Amsterdam and the Pakistani Islamabad creaks, sometimes it disappears for a while.
Although the conversation clearly pains him, the 35-year-old Afghan is determined to share his story. About how he worked in his home country Afghanistan for the governor of the province of Uruzgan and as a fixer for the Dutch documentary maker Sinan Can. He says that he arranged appointments for him, interpreted and took care of Can’s safety. And that, despite his work for the Dutch media, he was initially little concerned when the Taliban started their advance in Afghanistan in early 2021. It wasn’t until just before the fall of Kabul, exactly one year ago on Monday, that Naik started to get concerned. Are the Taliban coming after me now?
That fear turned out to be well-founded. Twice, in early September and early October, representatives of the new government knocked on his door – coincidentally when he was not home. Then they called. Whether Naik wanted to come to the ministry to talk about his work for the Dutch. He later learned from a relative with government connections that he was wanted. “Go away,” Naik’s relative told him.
wry
With the help of Free Press Unlimited, a Netherlands-based organization that aims to promote press freedom, Naik fled to Pakistan in December. He hopes that the Dutch government will pick him up, as it has been doing since August more than 3,600 of his compatriots who have worked for the Dutch mission, aid organizations or journalists.
There doesn’t seem to be much ground for that hope. It court in The Hague ruled at the end of July that the Netherlands does not have to pick up Naik. Because he did not receive an evacuation call from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs between the fall of Kabul on August 15 and the final withdrawal of the Netherlands 11 days later for “more or less coincidental reasons”, the government does not have to pick up Naik. That is “wry,” says the court itself. The request of fixer Samiullah Sardar, who worked for journalist Lotte van Elp, among others, was also rejected.
“I think it’s terrible,” says Sinan Can. He met Naik in 2016, who was then chief of staff to the governor of Uruzgan province, while filming the documentary Our mission in Afghanistan. “Jamal was very critical. About the corruption within the apparatus, about the cooperation between the Afghan government and the Taliban.” Naik gave many substantive tips. “For example, about corruption surrounding raw materials deals within the Afghan government. Jamal was very open and honest to an Afghan who was himself part of the government apparatus.” That honesty, Can says, may now get Naik into trouble.
Anyone who did not receive a call at the Dutch departure will no longer be picked up
In the more than eight days that Can and his team were in Afghanistan in the summer of 2016, Naik helped them find the right people to interview, make appointments, and translate. Until the broadcast in January 2017, he continued to do all kinds of work remotely. Just before the documentary aired, Can wanted to check facts. “I wanted to have all the identity papers of the people I interviewed, to check if their names were correct. Jamal then collected everything.”
Naik’s commitment to the group’s safety was also crucial, says Can. He gave tips on who they shouldn’t do business with—too dangerous, corrupt, not to be trusted. Or the time Can and his team were ambushed the day before leaving Afghanistan. “We were in a firefight for two and a half hours,” Can says. “Jamal then arranged for us to be escorted by soldiers on the way to the airport.”
Also read: “Many ‘Dutch’ Afghans no longer have to count on help from the cabinet”
In the summer of 2021, the Netherlands hastened to end its nearly twenty-year military mission in Afghanistan. In the run-up to the withdrawal, the Netherlands evacuated interpreters and other Afghans who worked at a high level for the Dutch mission. After the fall of Kabul on August 15, the evacuations began on a larger scale, later than some allies on similar missions. Because these Afghans had worked for enemies of the Taliban, they were in danger after the seizure of power. After the Belhaj motion of August 18, the group eligible for evacuation was expanded. On August 26, a bomb went off at Kabul airport. The Netherlands abruptly withdrew from Afghanistan and stopped the evacuations. By no means everyone who had made an evacuation request was helped then. It was not until weeks after the withdrawal that the Netherlands resumed pick-up campaigns.
Conditions further restricted
The cabinet periodically informs the House about the evacuations. In July this year, there were still 942 Afghans on the Dutch pick-up list. But conditions have been curtailed since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. In October the cabinet wrote that the Netherlands will continue to work ‘actively’ for Afghans who fall under the Belhaj motion and who received an evacuation call between 15 and 26 August, but were unable to reach the airport for whatever reason. Anyone who falls under the motion and meets strict criteria will also be picked up in August without a call. For example, aid workers who have been doing “substantial work” for at least a year since 2018.
Around August 19, a week before the Dutch withdrawal, Free Press Unlimited submitted an evacuation request for Naik and his colleague Sardar. They didn’t get a call. The court states that the state is free to set conditions for evacuations. It does not matter that the cabinet committed itself to the Belhaj motion in various letters to parliament. That is ‘political traffic’ that citizens cannot rely on.
When asked, the ministry says it does not know why Afghans such as Naik and Sardar have not been called for evacuation. The Ruys Committee is currently investigating the ‘acute evacuation phase’. The ministry: “It behooves us until the committee comes up with its findings not to anticipate this in the media.” The ‘extra effort’ that the cabinet promised for fixers and journalists means that 25 people who were on a European evacuation list will be included in the Netherlands. Naik and Sardar are not among them.
We have helped the Netherlands. Now that we need help, we get nothing
Jamal Naik fixer
sour and unjust
Asylum lawyer Barbara Wegelin of Van der Woude De Graaf Advocaten is critical of the criterion of the evacuation call. “It was a huge chaos in August 2021. It was completely arbitrary who got a call and who didn’t.” According to her, in the evacuation requests it was “in practice leading” whether an Afghan knew someone in the Netherlands with the right connections: lawyers, employees of Defense or Foreign Affairs, an aid organization. “They got through it by endlessly calling and emailing everyone. Those who didn’t have those connections didn’t hear anything anymore.”
Frans-Willem Verbaas, the asylum lawyer who assists Naik and Sardar, finds the judgment “sour and unjust”. That a call for evacuation is now the standard for pick-up seems “very arbitrary”. He believes that the government is going back on promises, in order to have to do less work. “It is as if the government is saying: we want to continue evacuating, but the group that we still have to pick up is very large. How can we reduce it?” According to him, this applies not only to fixers, but also to others who did not work directly for the Dutch mission.
Amazed fears for his other business. The lawyer from Alkmaar represents about twenty Afghans and their families who are not on the evacuation list of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but who say they have ties with the Netherlands. Verbaas estimates that he and other Dutch lawyers are assisting about 350 Afghans who fall outside the evacuation list. That includes family members who want to take evacuees with them.
Jamal Naik despairs. About what has happened to his country, about what happened to his family left behind in Afghanistan – a wife and four children. They’re in hiding. Naik doesn’t know how to maintain them. “We have helped the Netherlands. Now that we need help, we get nothing.” He and his colleague Sardar are staying in a Free Press Unlimited safe house in Islamabad. They entered the country on a tourist visa. “Our visa expired six months ago. Now we dare not leave the house. We live like prisoners, afraid of the police.” Pakistani authorities refused an extension request – why Naik and Sardar don’t know.
Can occasionally calls Naik. They talk about his business, about his state of mind, but also “about life”. Does Can regret working with Naik? “No. He was crucial to the work we did there. In the ten years I’ve been traveling now, he’s been the most important fixer I’ve had.”