AFGHANISTAN – IRAN: Lawyer and human rights defender Abdul Hussain Ashna and his wife Masooma Ahmadi, persecuted by the Taliban regime
16 September 2025
Afghan lawyer Abdul Hussain Ashna, a specialist in international law and defender of the human rights of the Hazara minority and Afghan women, together with his wife Masooma Ahmadi, also an activist, are at serious risk after being persecuted and attacked by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and subsequently harassed by the authorities and security services in Iran while living in exile.
Abdul Hussain Ashna has worked as a university professor, department head in Kabul and official in the Office of the President of Afghanistan. He is the founder of the Human Rights Defenders Social Community (HRDSC) organisation, through which he documented war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against the Hazara population, the Shia community and Afghan women, and filed complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC). He has represented dozens of victims of torture, rape, enforced disappearances and murders.
Because of these activities, he and his wife Masooma were identified by the Taliban government and have received constant death threats since 2019. On 27 January 2022, Taliban forces violently stormed their home in Kabul: they beat Masooma, who was pregnant at the time, causing her to bleed, threatened to execute their six-year-old son and confiscated their equipment and documents.
Once exiled in Iran, their immigration status was precarious and they suffered direct pressure from the Iranian authorities, who prohibited them from continuing their human rights work and threatened them with deportation if they persisted in their complaints against the Taliban. Abdul was repeatedly interrogated and coerced to abandon his work with the International Criminal Court. After refusing, he suffered the temporary confiscation of his passport, death threats and physical attacks against him, his father and his son during a religious ceremony in Tehran in 2025. Today, he lives in hiding and in constant fear for his life.
The International Observatory for Lawyers at Risk (OIAD), deeply concerned about the situation, demands that safe humanitarian corridors be guaranteed for Abdul Hussain Ashna, Masooma Ahmadi and their children, as well as for all human rights defenders, women, children and persecuted minorities. It is urgent that they be given the opportunity to leave Iran with their family and seek political asylum in a safe country.
The Observatory urges the Iranian authorities to fully respect the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, ratified by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1976.
The Observatory urges the Iranian State to immediately end the forced expulsions of all persons at risk of persecution in Afghanistan, in particular legal professionals.
The Observatory calls for the safety and protection of Afghan lawyers in exile from all forms of violence, harassment or arbitrary detention to be guaranteed.
The Observatory strongly condemns any measures aimed at intimidating, expelling or restricting the fundamental rights of Afghan refugee lawyers.
