The UK Law Society have urged the government to help Afghan judges, lawyers and prosecutors escape Taliban rule, after receiving “scores of desperate messages”.
The news comes one month after British barrister Baroness Kennedy launched a scheme and raised over £1m to rescue over 100 female Afghan judges and their families, airlifting them to Athens after persuading the president of Greece to take them in.
Earlier this month the UK granted permission to a group of three female judges and one male prosecutor and their families, to enter the country.
Around 270 women have sat as judges in Afghanistan in the past two decades, according to the UK government – with over 100 female judges still stuck in the country.
“Judges, lawyers, prosecutors and others who worked in the justice system tell us they are receiving death threats from the Taliban and prisoners they helped convict – many of them terrorists – who are now roaming the country seeking revenge on those who brought them to justice,” said Law Society president Stephanie Boyce in a statement today.
The issue, she insisted, was a “matter of urgency” as many victims were “terrified, without work or money, and moving with their families from hiding place to hiding place in fear for their lives.”
Although the government may not be able to continue facilitating evacuations from Afghanistan, the society said it should at least open other viable routes to safety, through initiatives such as the the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme.
The society have called on the government to make sure judges, lawyers, and prosecutors are eligible for resettlement under the scheme and considered within the first 5,000 to be granted indefinite leave to remain under it.
Lawyers in Afghanistan felt “abandoned by the international community, including the UK,” according to the society.
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