Telling stories visually, in this media-centric world, is so important to raising awareness and advancing solutions.
The experiences of Afghan women judges– their role in establishing the rule of law, facing Taliban challenges and trying to re-establish their lives – are inspiring.
“The stories of these brave Afghan women judges need to be told to the international legal community because they need our support.”
Stuart Russell, LLM '90
“Many members of the Afghan legal community have been forced to go underground or leave the country and are in fear of their lives. Many of their lives are in limbo, while they wait for their visa and immigration applications to be processed, which even for Canada takes an extremely long time. We have documented cases where Afghan lawyers, prosecutors, judges, law professors and other members of the legal profession have been killed, physically attacked, arrested, detained, tortured or have received credible death threats.”
Russell spent most of his early years in practice on legal aid cases, defending cases involving refugees, human rights and other equity-seeking activists.
After starting his LLM at uOttawa, he began teaching a course on poverty law at the Concordia University graduate program in politics and the law. After obtaining his master’s, Russell moved to Macquarie Law School in Australia to teach. From 1997 until 2004, he was also an administrative judge of the Refugee Review Tribunal in Sydney, the equivalent of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Towards the end of his judicial appointment, he spent considerable time reviewing Afghan cases, and acquiring a greater understanding about the people and country of Afghanistan. “I was very touched and moved by the Afghan claimants, especially one elderly widow whose children and husband had been killed by the Taliban, and who was dying of cancer.”
Russell said he loved teaching, researching and writing at Macquarie, but became discouraged “because the students were not interested in exploring the broader interdisciplinary and socio-legal aspects of the law.” In 2003, he left Macquarie and eventually moved to Bordeaux, France to start a new life. He spent the next decade at arms’ length to the law, teaching English and doing legal translations.
In 2014, Russell and the former Dean at Macquarie Law School began research on the persecution of human rights lawyers. They were amazed at the extent of the persecution, so they launched the Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers, a committee of the International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL). Now Russell is co-chair of the committee as well as the editor of its blog. Over the past eight years they have monitored Afghanistan, especially since the Taliban takeover in August 2021.
Because of his work with the IAPL, Russell is well-informed on the persecution of members of the legal community. He is pleased to apply his experience and expertise to such an important, timely and relevant project and to help spread awareness: “Afghanistan judges, particularly women judges, lawyers, prosecutors, law professors and law students remain at a real risk of serious harm at the hands of the Taliban, some of whom were sent to jail by former judges and prosecutors under the old régime.”