{"id":9134,"date":"2023-07-29T06:49:34","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T06:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/?p=9134"},"modified":"2023-07-29T06:56:08","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T06:56:08","slug":"salt-lake-county-d-a-works-to-evacuate-afghan-prosecutors-targeted-by-taliban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/?p=9134","title":{"rendered":"Salt Lake County D.A. works to evacuate Afghan prosecutors targeted by Taliban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-six Afghan prosecutors and some of their relatives have been tortured and killed since the U.S. military withdrew from the country.<\/h2>\n
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Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill is working with prosecutors nationwide to evacuate Afghan law professionals who have been targeted by the Taliban, he announced Thursday.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Prosecutors for Prosecutors campaign<\/a>\u00a0hopes to raise $15 million to rescue 1,500 prosecutors and their families who remain in Afghanistan, and was organized by the U.S. Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. Gill announced the campaign with members of the association\u2019s Major County Prosecutors council, who were gathered at the Salt Lake County district attorney\u2019s office for a summit.<\/p>\n

Between October 2021 and February 2022, over\u00a0900 Afghan arrivals resettled in Utah.\u00a0<\/a>Gill said the district attorney\u2019s office is already collaborating with local organizations including the Utah Muslim Civic League as his team works with the Prosecutors for Prosecutors campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are men and women in the Afghan community who were trained by Americans and our principles of rule of law,\u201d Gill said. \u201c… and who then held members of the Taliban accountable for murder, terrorism, assaults, kidnapping, and violence against women. Because they were not directly employed by the United States government, they did not have the special immigration visa when forces left Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Over 3,800 prosecutors and key staff members, along with their families, were left behind when the\u00a0U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0in 2021, Gill said. Since then, 26 of these prosecutors and some of their family members have been tortured and killed.<\/p>\n

The first step is raising funds, Gill said, which will then be distributed to nongovernmental organizations such as the Jewish Humanitarian Response who are already in the area to facilitate evacuations. These organizations also help Afghans who are in hiding with resources including food, health care and safe houses before organizing evacuations.<\/p>\n

Afghan prosecutors are not eligible for Special Immigrant Visas to the U.S. because they weren\u2019t directly employed by the U.S. government \u2014 and without efforts to expedite processing, these visas can take two to three years, according to the\u00a0campaign\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working legislatively, trying to talk to different representatives and senators to figure out, \u2018Okay, what can be done?\u2019\u201d said Nichole Parisi, chief operating officer of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years, that\u2019s just not the time we have to afford,\u201d she continued. \u201c… Organizations are utilizing funds to be able to go in and get people out, get them to a safe place, and then we can go through the process of relocating them here permanently, if needed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Even before the Taliban\u2019s takeover, hundreds of prosecutors in Afghanistan were the victims of targeted attacks, former Afghanistan prosecutor Yama Rayeen said.<\/p>\n

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Rayeen, who moved to the U.S. in 2016, worked with the Department of Justice\u2019s Rule of Law project in Afghanistan for 20 years. He\u2019s still in close contact with his colleagues who remain in the country, especially those who are in hiding \u2014 and out of the 1,500 prosecutors the campaign aims to rescue, Rayeen said he\u2019s talked with most of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you raise your voice against the Taliban and their extremist ideologies… it is very critical, and it\u2019s very dangerous,\u201d Rayeen said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut since I\u2019m doing right, and I know I am raising the voice of those victims who cannot raise their voice in Afghanistan \u2014 it may take a toll from me and my family, but if we keep quiet,\u201d he continued, \u201cthe hunting of the prosecutors by the Taliban is going to last more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty-six Afghan prosecutors and some of their relatives have been tortured and killed since the U.S. military withdrew from the country. Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill is working with prosecutors nationwide to evacuate Afghan law professionals who have been targeted by the Taliban, he announced Thursday. The\u00a0Prosecutors for Prosecutors campaign\u00a0hopes to raise $15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9142,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions\/9142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ago-af.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}