By Ellaha Rasa
After a career dedicated to protecting vulnerable women in Afghanistan, former defense lawyer Fayeza Mansoori is struggling as a refugee without support.
The 33-year-old worked as a lawyer in Afghanistan’s western province of Herat for at least five years before fleeing the country after the Taliban takeover. She had mainly represented women who were victims of violence and oppression, usually at the hands of people closest to them. She was harassed and threatened in this work for years. Death threats were not uncommon.
“A man was found guilty of burning his wife’s body part and committing violence against her. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison,” Ms Mansoori says in a phone interview about a case she represented. “The judge ordered a divorce due to the harm his wife had gone through. But that man considers me responsible for his imprisonment and threatens me and my family members by phone.”
Another person would threaten her was a man in Herat who had cut his wife’s thumb with a knife. “The husband had an argument with his first wife and intended to cut his wife’s tongue, but she resisted him. So her thumb was cut off,” she says. “I was the defense lawyer of the victim and after the inquiries of the hospital and forensic medicine, the criminal was proven guilty in this case. The husband was sentenced to prison for one year and six months.”
But it wasn’t until the Taliban took power in August 2021 that Ms Mansoori truly felt unsafe and unprotected.
One of the text messages on her mobile phone reads: “I am a Talib and I am in the General Directorate of Intelligence. It won’t take me a second to find you.” Ms Mansoori couldn’t verify the sender, but she didn’t want to take the risk. It was threats like these that drove her to quit her work and finally leave Afghanistan for Iran 10 months after the Taliban took power.
Living in limbo
Iran was not her first choice, but it was the only one available to Ms Mansoori at short notice. Once in the capital Tehran, she tried to get help from the United Nations refugee office, but eight attempts to enter in person were refused and the phone line is always busys. Then she hustled to gain access to several Western embassies to seek help including France, Italy, Brazil and Germany. All her efforts were ineffective.
Ms Mansoori says she has almost given up hope.
“When I go to sleep at night, I hope I don’t wake up,” she says.
Deliberately targeted
It’s been reported that former prosecutors were at high risk of being targeted by serious criminals who were released from jail by the Taliban when they arrived in Kabul.
According to the Association of Afghan Prosecutors, since August 21 2021, there have been 30 confirmed cases of murder and 11 cases of serious injury of prosecutors in Afghanistan. Women were victims in three of the murder cases and four cases of injury.
Ms Mansouri now does tailoring to support her family of seven. She works for around 13,000 afghanis (US$170) per month, or six million Iranian tomans. It’s an income that doesn’t stretch very far in Iran’s high cost of living.
“My father has a heart disease, my mother has a stomach ulcer disease, and my sister is a widow with her three children and has pain in her leg,” she says. “My income is six million tomans, of which we pay four million tomans for house rent, and only two million tomans remain for household expenses.”
Poverty and discrimination
Ms Mansoori’s story is not unique. Other Afghan defense lawyers also fled to Iran for safety, but they say now they are living in poverty and discrimination. In Iran, they have no right to work, no health insurance, no bank card, high rent and the local schools do not accept their children.
Fariba Sufizada, 33, has been living in Tehran for more than 15 months with her husband, two daughters, and two sons. They were also compelled to leave Afghanistan as her husband was a former soldier of the Afghan army and they didn’t believe the Taliban’s pledges of amnesty.
Ms Sufizada has recently handed over her passport for a visa extension. She fears that if the extension is not accepted, she may be sent back to Afghanistan. She also faces threats if she goes back.
“A family wanted to force their daughter to marry her cousin, and they injured her with a knife. They wanted to take the girl out of the hospital and kill her, but I reported them to human rights and cooperated with the human rights department that she would be admitted her to a hospital for a week, and then we transferred her to a safe house. Later, the girl married the person she wanted,” she says. “But her cousin’s family believed that I was the person behind the cancellation of the [forced] marriage. They collected detailed information about my residence and family members and are threatening me.”
Ms Sufizada’s husband pays the household expenses by working as a shoemaker. But it is a life that is hand to mouth. The lack of money has become a major anxiety for her. She says that behind her 16-year-old son’s left ear, a lump has grown that needs advanced operation. But they are not able to afford to cover the cost.
Ms Sufizada laments the lack of concern from the international community and human rights organizations, saying they have been left alone and no institution supports women like her.
She says in the 15 months since she arrived in Iran, she has not heard back from UNHCR’s Tehran office about the status of their asylum case, despite repeated attempts.
Seeking options
Afghanistan’s former defense lawyers can often be found them wandering around the closed gates of the Western embassies and UN agencies. Zarifa Kohistani, 31 is one of them, a defense lawyer who was based in Kapisa province.
Ms Kohistani says she became interested in the profession after observing cases of violation of women’s rights in Afghanistan. She had investigated criminal, civil, and cases of violence against women for five years before she was forced to flee for her safety.
Ms Kohistani says she handled dozens of cases of violence against women, and the handling of these cases has put her in the crosshairs of attacks from those she helped prosecute.
She says she was responsible for defending a young woman against her father who had raped her. The woman was seven months pregnant by her father when it was discovered. After a thorough investigation, his crime was proven, and he was sentenced to the maximum term of life imprisonment – that is, twenty years, based on Chapter 3, Article 7 of the Criminal Law of Afghanistan.
The woman had a fiancé, and after the case ended and through mediation, he agreed to still marry her and raise the child as his own.
But, according to Ms Kohistani, the father was released from prison on the eve of the Taliban coming to power, putting her at risk as the lawyer who helped put him behind bars.
She only stayed a month in Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban. Threats to her life forced her to flee with her family.
Ms Kohistani says life in Iran is so difficult they are thinking to risk making a treacherous journey to Europe. “My children and I have no future in Iran,” she says. “With my husband’s advice, we may plan to travel to Europe illegally.”
The end of justice
The Taliban merged the Independent Defense Lawyers Association with the Ministry of Justice after they seized power, and cancelled work permits of defense lawyers, saying they were not allowed to work on legal and criminal cases until they are approved by the Ministry of Justice instead.
Independent Defense Lawyers Association was established in 2008 based on Article 31 of the Constitution, and it was considered one of great achievements in the Afghanistan’s legal sector.
According to the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association in Exile, before the fall of the republic government, there were about 6,000 defense lawyers working across Afghanistan, including 1,600 female defense lawyers.
Since August 2021, at least 300 defense lawyers have reached European and American countries in the process of evacuation, with another 60 of them in a state of uncertainty in Pakistan and Iran.
Afghanistan Independent Bar Association in Exile chief Rohullah Qarizada says the Taliban has damaged the profession by insulting, humiliating, supervising and arresting defense lawyers and also recruiting non-professionals from among their members.
“Defense lawyers live in misery without security, and a considerable number of defense lawyers live in neighboring countries for fear of torture and arbitrary arrests by the Taliban and lack of physical immunity,” he tells Rukhshana Media.
Mr Qarizada’s deputy Najla Raheel believes the future of female defense lawyers in Afghanistan is hopeless as long as the Taliban are in charge. “When the association was independent, it could freely defend its clients; But now that it is a government association, everything is under the influence of the Taliban,” she says. “And the same freedom and independence that is required to have a job as a defense lawyer, currently does not exist.”
Ms Raheel notes that when Kabul fell, many foreign governments pledged to protect Afghans who were in danger. But most defense lawyers were not included in the evacuation process. “There isn’t a single defense lawyer who wasn’t threatened after the release of the prisoners. The prisoners have a grudge against them,” she says.
“We know of a number of defense lawyers who were taken away and killed or a female defense lawyer who was killed in a heinous way at the gate of her office. But unfortunately, the family of the lawyer have refused to give more details.”
Based on similar accounts, it is likely the family stays silent has they have similarly been threatened.
