Crisis Management
The semester-long Berkeley Law Afghanistan Project focused on two urgent needs: establishing a pro bono initiative to help Afghans resolve legal issues impeding their ability to leave, and preserving evidence of human rights abuses committed by the Taliban.
“It was humbling and overwhelming,” Massoumi says, noting that over 70 Berkeley Law students signed up to help within a couple days of the initiative being announced. “We feel really supported by Berkeley Law and grateful that the school put such effort and resources behind creating this project.”
Faculty member and fellow Afghan refugee Amelia Miazad ’02 and other colleagues engaged their contacts in the business and academic world, and Berkeley Law’s Development & Alumni Relations office facilitated fundraising efforts.
Aziz is a human rights lawyer who has spent nearly 20 years working on and off in Afghanistan. Massoumi has had a long career representing public and federal agencies. Each fled Afghanistan as a child with their families in the early 1980s, settled in the United States, attended Berkeley Law, and joined its International Human Rights Law Clinic.
With family members in Afghanistan and colleagues from religious and ethnic groups targeted by the Taliban, Aziz calls it a “terrifying” situation.
“Some of these people worked for the former government and received threats,” she says. “This was all retraumatizing for us. Our whole lives were spent dealing with that trauma and legacy of having to flee and not wanting to. That’s why we wanted to provide as much relief as we could as fast as we could.”
Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center (HRC) also responded quickly to the crisis, launching a program with San Jose State University’s Human Rights Institute and the UC Berkeley Afghan Student Association to bring threatened Afghan scholars to the Bay Area.
The program expects to support 10 Afghan scholars — six at Berkeley and four at San Jose State, as well as their family members — with one-year fellowships. Scholars will have an academic base to continue their work, financial support for travel and housing, and legal help to navigate the complex landscape of visas and work permits.
Khwaga Ghani, the first scholar to come to Berkeley, addressed a reception at HRC.
“I’m just taking my body to a safe place, because my soul had already been wounded and I left it behind me,” she said. “I left the homeland where I belong, where I was supposed to develop and bring changes for the new generation through my work and my stories.”
— Andrew Cohen & Edward Lempinen
