Mr. Andrew Anderson:

We also wish to raise the issues of long-term imprisonment and Afghanistan. As regards long-term imprisonment, it is interesting to note that Ms Mary Lawlor, our former executive director and now UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, is currently preparing to submit to the UN a report on the long-term imprisonment of human rights defenders. That is an issue that we have been seised of for quite some time. One of the challenges in some of these cases is that after the person has gone through initial detention and trial, there is little sustained attention because there are very few developments in the case. That is one of the reasons why we are trying to shine a light on some of those cases.

We have a personal commitment to this issue because Abdulhadi al-Khawaga, a human rights defender from Bahrain who worked with Front Line Defenders for three years up to 2011, has now been in prison in Bahrain for just over ten years. He recently celebrated his 60th birthday and his tenth anniversary in prison in Bahrain. Abdulhadi worked with us to support human rights defenders across the Middle East and north Africa, but stepped down from Front Line Defenders because he became engaged with the movement for democracy and human rights associated with the Arab Spring events in February 2011. He was detained and brutally tortured, requiring surgery to reconstruct his jaw, and subjected to an unfair trial before a military court. He was officially sentenced on charges of terrorism and overthrowing the state by armed force. Not a shred of evidence with any credibility has ever been presented against him on those charges. He is a prisoner of conscience adopted by Amnesty International. From prison, he continues to be an advocate for human rights and a peaceful resolution of the situation in Bahrain. We recommend his case to the committee and ask that it seek to redouble efforts to call for his release.

In the course of setting up this session, we spoke to the committee about the case of Fr. Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest who died a few months ago in India having been detained for nine months at 84 years of age and denied proper medical treatment. We are continuing to work on the case of Fr. Stan but it is important to highlight that 15 other human rights defenders arrested in connection with the same legal case are currently being held in India without trial on spurious charges. We encourage the committee to consider that issue and perhaps recommend that the Department of Foreign Affairs follow up on it.

Turning to Afghanistan, we are lucky to have with us Mr. Hassan Ali Faiz, who will share his thoughts on his experience of being forced to leave the country and of coming to Ireland. Before he does so, I note that we have had fantastic co-operation from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Front Line Defenders had access to approximately 50 visa waivers for human rights defenders at risk. Of those people, 14 are now in Ireland, while 23 others are in transit. That makes a real life-saving difference to some of those people who were at most extreme risk. The co-operation, particularly from Mr. Gerry Cunningham and others in the Department, not just in providing the visas, but also following up, being in touch with airline staff and border guards etc., and accompanying the human rights defenders on their journeys, has been phenomenal. We really appreciate the support and engagement of the Department on that issue.

Front Line Defenders has also been trying to help facilitate the relocation of other people from Kabul. In the past ten days, we have been able to get 168 human rights defenders who had visas for onward travel out to Islamabad. It is a fragile process, but we hope to have a third flight with people on it this week. The key issue in that regard is visas. We have been able to get some people out if they have onward visas for travel to a third country such as Ireland, Chile, Portugal or Canada. We have managed to secure visas for all of those countries. However, if a person does not have a visa, there is currently no way out of the country. Indeed, some of the people who were able to get across the land border to Pakistan were turned back. Our third ask of the committee is to recommend to the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Government more generally to consider increasing the number of visas available for those human rights defenders who are most at risk.

We continue to work with people who are in extremely difficult situations. I was speaking to a female human rights defender at the weekend. She is in hiding in Kabul as we speak. She went back to Afghanistan a week before the fall of Kabul because she was trying to help family members get out of the country. Many people have displayed that kind of selflessness and remained in Afghanistan to look after family members or colleagues. Some of the ten people for whom we have Irish visas but who have not yet left remain in the country because they are trying to look after their colleagues and family members who they have not yet been able to get out of Afghanistan. We hope that more of them will get out this week.

The support we have had from the Government on this issue has been fantastic but the support we have received from other European Governments has been quite depressing.

We have been disappointed in the European Union's response to the issue of human rights defenders in the country, particularly given that the EU and many European countries supported human rights projects and organisations in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. The EU has provided some funding to support human rights defenders but has been very limited in what it has been able to do in terms of co-ordinating the evacuation of people at high risk and the provision of visas. That is primarily an issue for the member states but they have, for the most part, not been helpful in terms of the provision of visas for human rights defenders at risk, with a few notable exceptions, including Ireland.

I will stop there and give an opportunity to others. It is probably more important for the committee to hear from Mr. Hassan Ali Faiz about the current situation in Afghanistan, the level of need and his own experience of the perilous journey to be here with us.