MPs were working to bring former Afghan politician to Canada before she was killed — 8 others are waiting | 24CA News
Canadian politicians have been working to deliver Mursal Nabizada, a girl who used to function a Member of Parliament in Afghanistan earlier than the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, to this nation earlier than she was killed this weekend.
The precise circumstances of Nabizada’s demise are unclear, however police in Kabul mentioned she and her bodyguard have been killed by unknown gunmen, and her brother injured, all in an assault that passed off at her dwelling in a single day on Saturday.
“It was devastating news and very tragic,” mentioned Alex Ruff, the Conservative MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen-Sound, Ont., certainly one of six Canadian MPs who’ve been collaborating behind the scenes since final October to fast-track immigration for Nabizada and eight different feminine Afghan MPs who remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover of the nation practically two years in the past.
“We came together as an all-party group to advocate for their really urgent movement to safety and to come to Canada,” mentioned Ruff, a army veteran who served in Afghanistan himself.
The group additionally contains Green Party of Canada co-leader Elizabeth May, the Bloc Québécois’ Alexis-Brunelle Duceppe, the NDP’s Heather McPherson, and Liberals Marcus Powlowski and Leah Taylor Roy.
“We cannot lose another woman that is on that list. We cannot afford that. We have a responsibility,” mentioned Brunelle-Duceppe. “This government is supposedly a feminist government. Well, it has to prove it.”
Slain MP had ‘brilliant spark,’ activist says
Corey Levine, a human-rights activist who met Nabizada whereas posted in Afghanistan with the United Nations from November 2020 to June 2021, mentioned she had a “bright spark to her.”
Levine was in Afghanistan in June 2022 as nicely. She mentioned she had managed to persuade the Canadian MPs of various political stripes to work collectively to deliver Nabizada and the eight different feminine politicians to Canada from Afghanistan.
“Their lives had gone from being top of Afghan society as being public figures representing their constituents in Parliament to going into hiding.”
Women in Afghanistan are struggling to manage below the newest guidelines launched by the Taliban authorities that limit girls’s freedom, together with bans on attending college and even a ban on girls help employees.
She mentioned that originally, Nabizada had needed to remain in Afghanistan, however Levine satisfied the previous MP that shifting to Canada was safer.
“She was ready to leave,” mentioned Levine, who discovered about Nabizada’s killing Saturday evening by means of a gaggle chat with the opposite feminine MPs.
“I ended up staying up all night texting with the women,” she mentioned. “We were just trying to process the loss, what it meant for them … just trying to be there for each other.”
Government keen to work with all events
CBC reached out to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser for an interview, however the federal authorities didn’t make him accessible.
In an announcement issued collectively by his workplace and that of Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, Ottawa condemned Nabizada’s homicide, and known as for “the perpetrators of this horrific crime to be brought to justice.”
The federal authorities additionally mentioned it can proceed to do the whole lot it may to welcome Afghans.
“This includes working with Members of Parliament from all parties to advance our nation’s efforts, and specifically, bring more women leaders to Canada,” mentioned the assertion, which was brief on particulars about this group of feminine Afghan MPs.
But Taylor Roy, one of many two governing caucus Liberals among the many Canadian Parliamentarians making an attempt to deliver the ladies to Canada, instructed there are a variety of challenges and that it isn’t a easy matter of placing the ladies on a airplane leaving Afghanistan.
“There’s so many people applying through these [immigration] programs, and one of the problems is that these women are still in Afghanistan,” Taylor Roy mentioned. “And of course there’s great danger in moving them to another country.”
“They have to have assurance that they have somewhere to go because we know neighbouring countries have been returning refugees back to Afghanistan. If this were to happen to any of them, obviously they would be in the hands of the Taliban.”
In late December, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada instructed 24CA News it had obtained phrase from the federal government of Pakistan that it will not power paperless Afghan migrants to return to Afghanistan.
The federal authorities has pledged to deliver 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada. Since August 2021, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says that 27,345 Afghans have arrived right here below varied packages.
The Taliban-run Afghan larger training ministry says feminine college students wouldn’t be allowed entry to the nation’s universities till additional discover. Frozan Rahmani, an Afghan-Canadian journalist, has been documenting the dismantling of ladies’s rights within the nation because the Taliban took management of Kabul in the summertime of 2021.
