JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – August 15th marked the two-year anniversary of the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s “victory” and the collapse of the Afghan democratic government was swift.
In less than 24 hours, the U.S. had evacuated its citizens, contractors, and military personnel, leaving behind more than 3,000 Afghan prosecutors who were trained by the U.S. and its allies to uphold the rule of law.
Afghan justice sector employees, including forty-one prosecutors, have been murdered or injured by the Taliban since.
When the Taliban and other terrorists were arrested Afghan prosecutors charged and convicted them, leading to the legal imprisonment of almost 50,000 members of the Taliban, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations. Now the prosecutors who imprisoned them live in hiding, facing starvation and death threats as their colleagues are murdered in retribution for upholding the rule of law.
U.S. prosecutors, under the leadership of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (APA), have joined together to help our Afghan colleagues through Prosecutors for Prosecutors, a campaign www.prosecutors.mo.gov to relocate Afghan prosecutors and their families to safe countries.
On August 29th , the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys’ Board of Directors voted to join the Prosecutors for Prosecutors campaign as a Founding Organization, donated $ 5,000 to the campaign, and encouraged its membership to get involved.
The rule of law matters. It certainly matters in Missouri. Prosecutors in Afghanistan are being targeted and killed for upholding the rule of law, and they need our help to get to safety. In Missouri we do the right thing even when it is difficult.
Join us in supporting the rule of law, go to apa-pfp.org to get involved.
Call your Federal Representatives and ask them to expand the Special Immigrant Visa eligibility to create a path to safety for our allies in peril.
And if you are able, please donate. The U.S. and its allies may have left Afghanistan two years ago, but our moral responsibility remains. More than 3,000 prosecutors are pleading for our help. We cannot forget them