MEDEL has been following with deep concern the events in Afghanistan. The bureau sent a letter to UNHCR, affirming MEDEL’s availability to help in the settlement of all those magistrates, lawyers and human rights defenders that manage to escape.
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MEDEL suit avec une profonde inquiétude les événements en Afghanistan. Le bureau a envoyé une lettre au HCNUR, affirmant la disponibilité de MEDEL à aider à l’installation de tous les magistrats, avocats et défenseurs des droits de l’homme qui parviennent à s’échapper.
To
Mr Filippo Grandi
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Your Excellency,
I am writing to you in my capacity of president of MEDEL – Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés.
I wish to address your office in connection with the dramatic situation in Afghanistan that followed the sudden seizure of power by the Taliban.
MEDEL wants to express its deepest concern for the humanitarian crisis that is getting increasingly serious, and for the risks of a stable decline of the fundamental rights of persons, women and children in the first place.
The news and the witness reports that arrive on a daily basis confirm the escalation of violence and acts of retaliation against those who in the country represented, and are still associated, with the advancement of democracy and the rule of law.
MEDEL, which gathers 23 associations of magistrates from 16 different European countries, since its establishment is committed to the promotion of the independence of the judiciary as a guarantee for the protection of the freedoms and fundamental rights of persons, including the support to magistrates harassed and threatened because of their activity.
We share the alert launched since a long time in the international community about the strategy of violence against those who in recent years worked for the strengthening of the institutions and judicial system of Afghanistan.
The savage murder last January of two women judges of the Afghan Supreme Court – Qadria Yasini and Zakia Herawi – proves that those who are today primarily at risk are indeed the women who, in the judiciary as in other fields, in selfless disregard for their own safety, contributed with their work to advance rights and rule of law.
MEDEL is convinced that today the only response by the international community that is in line with the values of democracy is the widest possible mobilization to rescue and give shelter to all those who are risking their life and are facing a grim future, where fundamental rights are denied.
MEDEL deems that, face to this severe humanitarian crisis, we must all feel called to ensure a reaction that is coherent with all the indivisible and universal values of human dignity and solidarity enshrined in our Constitutions.
We are grateful for the high mission that the UNHCR performs in the rescue of persons and in the protection of the lives of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers, and we wish to ensure the full support of MEDEL and its member associations to any effort aimed at facilitating the hosting of magistrates, lawyers and Human Rights defenders in all the countries where we are present.
MEDEL remains at your full disposal for any kind of collaboration the UNHCR would see of use.
Yours sincerely,
Filipe César Marques
President of MEDEL – Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés