The Times Magazine 65alimah spent almost two decades
as a judge in Afghanistan,
exercising the rule of law – in a
country recently liberated from
lawlessness – and working to build
a criminal justice system in a still
corrupt, dangerous and male-
dominated nation. In courtrooms
in Kabul she oversaw criminal
trials and cases involving national
security, frequently sentencing murderers and
perpetrators of domestic violence, along with
members of the Taliban and Isis – many of
whom would publicly vow to exact revenge for
their imprisonment.
Today, Halimah (not her real name) is in
hiding, living in a one-room apartment with
her husband and two teenage sons in a remote
province far from their home in Kabul. They
have not returned in almost three months,
having fled five days after the Taliban seized
control of the capital, moving constantly to
evade detection.
“If we stay anywhere too long we will be
caught by the Taliban, and they will definitely
kill us,” says Halimah, who is in her fifties.
Even before the Taliban’s return to power,
her safety was far from assured; she recalls
one night, in 2004, while she was attending
a wedding, her husband was taken from their
home and beaten by the Taliban so badly that
he was left permanently paralysed. And earlier
this year, two female judges serving on the
Afghan Supreme Court were shot and killed
on their way to work in Kabul.
On January 17, Kadria Yasini, 53, and
Zakia Herawi, 47, were travelling through the
Qala-e-Fathullah area of the city early in the
morning in the back seat of a car when a pair
of gunmen opened the doors and began firing.
Yasini was hit five times at close range and
Herawi was shot in her face, neck and chest.
In the early months of summer this year,
Halimah watched the Taliban’s alarmingly
rapid mobilisation with a growing dread. “We
felt they would be coming to Kabul soon.”
Still, she admits, nobody expected it would
happen quite so fast.
It wasn’t just the Taliban themselves she
feared. “As soon as the Taliban entered Kabul
they opened the prisons and released all
prisoners,” she explains. “That made it very
dangerous for us judges.”
Already the sole breadwinner, after her
husband’s paralysis left him unable to work, she
had her bank account frozen by the Taliban.
“And I was receiving threatening phone calls
continuously. I was told, ‘Once we find you, we
will kill you and your family.’ ” She changed
her number several times and left home to
stay with relatives, but the threats continued.
Three weeks ago, Halimah, her husband and
their sons fled the city altogether, travelling by
public transport – an extra challenge given herhusband’s paralysis – to the tiny apartment
that they have not left since. “I don’t even
let my children go outside because of the
Taliban,” says Halimah. A network of NGOs,
aid organisations and charities, including the
International Association of Women Judges,
is providing the safe house and regular food
deliveries to the family.
But they live in limbo, unsure of how
long they can stay or where they can go next.
Worse, though, says Halimah, is that they are
not at all sure if they are safe. “We are living
in constant fear – we are terrified.”
In the immediate, horrified aftermath of the
Taliban’s return to power, the UK government
committed to offering visas to 20,000 Afghans
over five years, including 5,000 over the
next year, in a scheme called the Afghan
Relocations and Assistance Policy (Arap).
To qualify, applicants must have worked
for the UK government, in roles such as
interpreters, embassy officials and cultural
advisers, or, in special cases, “worked in
meaningful enabling roles alongside HMG
[Her Majesty’s Government]... that made
a material difference to the delivery of the
UK mission in Afghanistan”.There are more than 280 female judges
like Halimah who worked at the highest levels
of Afghanistan’s judiciary. Many were trained
and mentored by British judges via the
International Bar Association (IBA), and by
the Allied forces whose mission they upheld,
not only by enacting the liberal justice system
that they established, but also in sentencing
members of the Taliban, Isis and al-Qaeda.
Late last month, however, Halimah’s
application for a UK visa under Arap was
refused by the Foreign Office, prompting
Mishcon de Reya – the law firm representing
her, along with 27 of her fellow judges – to
prepare judicial review proceedings. The
firm is forcing the government into court to
challenge the terms of Arap and its refusal,
under the terms of the policy, to grant the
judges UK visas.
A judicial review is no quick solution. “We
are going to ask for an expedited hearing for
obvious reasons – it is urgent,” says Maria
Patsalos, a partner at Mishcon de Reya. The
tales of brutality, threats and torture against
those judges still in Afghanistan are distressing
and ceaseless. One UK activist, who is
fundraising on behalf of the judges, forwards
me reams of desperate WhatsApp messages:
videos, filmed from behind the curtains, of
heavily armed Taliban arriving to search
houses; hunger and poverty in hiding;
kidnappings; lists of assassinations of
prosecutors – with photographs. “Please
help us,” the judges beg.
While law firms such as Mishcon de Reya
battle to win visas for the judges so they can
legally enter the UK, humanitarian and
charitable bodies are simultaneously working
to evacuate them from immediate danger
to countries including Greece, Germany,
Switzerland, Turkey and the United Arab
Emirates – some of which serve only as an
interim measure, others as an alternative
country in which to seek asylum. Other
judges, fearing for their lives and unable to
wait for evacuation, have fled across borders
from Afghanistan into Pakistan, Uzbekistan
and Tajikistan.
Helena Kennedy QC, director of human
rights for the IBA, has been instrumental
in these evacuation efforts, and last month
likened the situation to Schindler’s List.
“These women were in mortal danger.
They were running courts on things like
domestic violence and child marriage and
many of them locked up Taliban [members].
As soon as the Taliban came back they
had to flee,” says Kennedy.
“We encouraged these women to step into
these roles because we wanted Afghanistan to
become a democracy reflecting the rights of
law and to protect the rights of other women,”
she says. “We can’t do this to these women.
They deserve better.”H
Homa Alizoy meeting former Afghan president Hamid KarzaiMurdered judges Kadria Yasini and Zakia Herawi‘As soon as the Taliban
entered Kabul they
released all prisoners.
We live in constant fear’
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