The mother of the family had worked as a journalist in Afghanistan and was a prominent women’s rights activist. After the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, she organised various demonstrations for women’s rights that had a big social media impact and attracted the attention of the Taliban, which made threats against the family. The family managed to flee to Pakistan, however there was a high likelihood of them being deported to Afghanistan against their will.
The National Court accepted the request for an injunction put forward by the Professor Uría Foundation, guaranteeing the urgent safe passage of the family to Spain. This decision was based on the precedent set by the Contentious-Administrative Chamber (5th section) of the Spanish Supreme Court 199/2024 of 6 February (Supreme Court decision 680/2024), which was also led by Foundation volunteers. In this case they secured another Afghan family’s right to an urgent injunction authorising safe passage to Spain to seek asylum.
The legal analysis in this case is detailed in the article published in edition 64 of Uría Menéndez’s law journal Actualidad Jurídica (in Spanish) “El traslado a España de solicitantes de protección internacional en situación de peligro: clarificación del régimen del art. 38 de la Ley 12/2009 en la Sentencia del Tribunal Supremo n.º 199/2024, 6 de febrero”.
This decision is particularly significant owing to the fact that this family had no prior connection to Spain. It is an important achievement that will transform the life of a family, and was only possible due to the combined efforts of José Alberto Navarro, Marta Estrada, María Teresa Villaverde, Carlos Carazo and Claudia Venecia Martín, with input from Florbela Bessada, Elena Cubero and Eloína Rodríguez.
