A few days from freedom. A former Afghan anti-terrorist prosecutor who fled to Pakistan three years ago when the United States withdrew from Afghanistan and the state was left in the hands of the Taliban regime is hiding in a house in Islamabad, with her 6-year-old son, awaiting the ambassador's call. Spanish who will give you the visa that will allow you to travel to Spain and request asylum.
The precious visa, the safe passage that will take you to Madrid to request asylum, is what a group of law degree students from Pompeu Fabra (UFP), aged between 21 and 25, have obtained, together with a professor and a practicing lawyer. On Tuesday, the National Court decided to order the Spanish ambassador to provide her with the travel documents necessary for her “immediate transfer” to Spain due to the serious danger in which she is.
“We are very happy, this case goes beyond academics,” says Christian López, the delegate of the six students who have defended the prosecutor. In addition to López, Adrián Vila, Núria Bonet, Maria Franco, Adrià Castilla and Judit Salvador are on the team. They are coordinated by A. Mesalles and advised by the lawyer Gemma Arqués, who was a UPF student at the time and who has carried out this task voluntarily and free of charge. Finally, the director of the UPF legal clinic and vice dean of law, Maurici Pérez Simeón, has been involved.
“It was an important challenge from the beginning because it was a very complex immigration case that could have a long history. We were studying 3rd and 4th years of law but we really wanted to help and we got deeply involved,” López continues.
The case arrived in 2022 at the campus legal clinic, a space where student volunteers are encouraged to address real legal issues. It came as a request from a prosecutor from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, alerted to the situation of her Afghan counterpart by an international association. Since the Taliban took power, Afghan women have been completely excluded from the legal system, which has practically been dismantled, after the suspension of the 2004 Constitution and the independence of the judicial system was no longer guaranteed.
The former Afghan prosecutor, 30 years old, widow (her husband, a lawyer, died in the Kabul terrorist attack in 2018), mother of a 6-year-old child, participated in “relevant” proceedings regarding international terrorism, including terrorist proceedings Taliban. Then, when American troops began their withdrawal from the country in April 2021, she crossed the border with her sister to hide in a house in Islamabad.
The students became aware that they were women alone, without papers, “without a male guardian,” without money, vulnerable to detention in a country without guarantees. “Lonely women attract attention on public transport, in stores, in the market. The police ask them for their papers and, if they see that they are Afghans, they unceremoniously deport them,” explains the director of the clinic.
That is exactly what happened to the prosecutor's 22-year-old sister. One day they entered the house where they were sleeping, when her sister and her nephew were not inside, they loaded her into a truck and took her to Kabul. For the prosecutor who accused numerous Muslim fundamentalists who ended up in prison, now free, the danger is greater.
“Asking for asylum without being in the country in which you are applying is very difficult. There aren't that many embassies you can call. Germany and the United States are some. And Spain, which by virtue of article 38 of the Asylum Law which indicates that “in order to deal with cases that arise outside the national territory, as long as the applicant is not a national of the country in which the diplomatic representation and "If their physical integrity is in danger, the Spanish ambassadors may promote the transfer of the asylum seeker(s) to Spain to make the application possible."
The young prosecutor had requested it from Ambassador José Antonio de Ory Peral, who interviewed her on two occasions. But he did not issue any order. “The ambassador has thousands of files on the table that he must study and few administrative personnel resources,” says Pérez Simeón. “Faced with this collapse, he goes in order of entry.”
“When we saw that we only obtained an 'administrative silence' to our request at the embassy, we appealed to the Spanish Prosecutor's Office,” continues the student, Christian López, until we achieved the resolution on Wednesday from the National Court that indicates that this is a precedent, but for exceptional cases like this.
The director of the legal clinic that maintains communication with the prosecutor explains that she has received the news with contained gratitude. “She has been waiting for three years, until she arrives at the airport she will not be calm,” he adds.
She hopes the ambassador will call her in the coming days. Then, you will have to visit the Spanish legation on two occasions. First, leave your details and print your fingerprints to process the documents, then collect the visa. From there, she must get to the airport on her own.
“We have urged the ambassador, who perhaps has not yet received the letter from the National Court, to begin the procedures as soon as possible,” continues the vice dean. To have everything prepared, the clinic has raised funds to pay for plane tickets from Islamabad to Madrid.
Once in Spain, the asylum request will be requested and you will enter a special program until your claim is assessed and accepted. “We will continue to support you from a legal point of view and we will offer you the faculty of applied languages for rapid learning of Spanish,” says Pérez Simeón. “We are very happy for her and for making visible the situation in which many Afghans live. We have forgotten about them with Ukraine and Gaza,” says López, who has already graduated but is still involved in the case.
