JURIST EXCLUSIVE – Law students in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on Sunday. Here, a law student in Kabul offers his latest observations and perspective. For privacy and security reasons we are withholding his name and institutional affiliation. The text has been only lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.
Today was the 102nd Independence Day for Afghanistan [commemorating the conclusion of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1919, after which Afghanistan was no longer a British protectorate], or so it would have been. In the present dire situation for the country brave men and women took to streets of Kabul holding the national flag of Afghanistan. In the Kart-e-now section of Kabul city these people carrying flags were meet by brutal force and shooting on civilians by the Taliban, causing many casualties said a young man to me who was present at the incident. Our news channels, however, only reported two dead. The optimism of people given the circumstances has made a great positive impact on mental health of the people of Afghanistan as they start to hope for a brighter future. This however, is at a terrible cost; civilians have been shot and killed in Jalal Abad city, Khost province and now the capital, Kabul, just for carrying the national flag.
The evacuation process out of Kabul is being handled in the worst possible way. Thousands of people have gathered near the Kabul Airport in hopes of traveling to safety. Despite the fact that Taliban poses a threat to Afghans and even the region, the people whose lives are in immediate threat cannot get in the Airport despite having their documents ready. Today, more than eight people were shot. I hope the US government pushes for a reasonable timeframe for the evacuation of eligible applicants and better management of the Airport gates.
The income for most families here has gone to nothing. People are feeding themselves by their savings and almost every government employee has not been paid their salary for months. Courts are closed and for law academics and practitioners the case is far worse in terms of generating income, since there are no laws applicable in the country, and the Taliban believe that Sharia Law only should be applied. This is like saying all the common law is applicable without having data or records of case law; now every principle of common law without being supported by case law would mean endless debates on scholars’ opinions. The same is with the Sharia Law – without having a main line there would be endless debate to which law exact should be applicable. Being a law student, it seems clear to me that the inevitable outcome of this will be the same laws written with a bit of Sharia terms, which will lose a lot of time and make everyone feel bad. It is safe to say that thousands who were engaged in the legal sector will be jobless for a long while.
The lawyers, judges, prosecutors, clerks and everyone involved in the judicial sector of the country have very low hopes of immigrating. This is due to them not being eligible for SIVs and P-2s. Their professional work is not being considered as activism either for other visa granting countries. I hope international observers and in particular US citizens will urge the United States to take a more flexible position on the issuance of P-2 visas, and do more to get people to safety.
In the end I will leave you with a simple observation on the state of mental health here. One of the men who fell from the US military transport plane leaving Kabul Airport Monday was a doctor. A neighbor of his told me that that man’s father, after hearing the horrible death of his son, had a stroke and died. Hours later, his mother, seeing her husband and her son’s deaths, committed suicide. This is the second reported suicide in the last couple of days; previously on 11 Aug a young girl in Nimroz province, Zaranj City, killed herself for fear of being raped by the Taliban. This and many more injustices and brutalities are not being covered by the news, as Afghanistan’s news agencies are now strictly monitored. Anisa Shahid, a well-known Afghan journalist, wrote in her Twitter account on how discouraging it is for her to work under this pressure. She wrote that her hands are tied, as she cannot report or investigate on the leads she gets, on the crimes that are being done to Afghans.
People had hoped that the insurgents have changed, but today the Taliban took hundreds of people back to the 1990s as they brutalized and lashed three young kids for wearing jeans. Although we will stay hopeful and will not bow to lashes, punches, kicks or bullets, it is true that almost everything feels uncertain and dark. Still it is fitting to remember what the great 13th century Persian poet and Islamic scholar Rumi said: “Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day”.
