Hamida Barmaki

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Hamida Barmaki (born January 4, 1970 - January 28, 2011 in Kabul ) was an Afghan law professor, human rights activist and politician. She was killed in a suicide attack along with her entire family.

academic career

Hamida Barmaki was born on January 4, 1970 in Kabul . After attending Ariana High School in Kabul (1977–1987), she studied law at the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Kabul . Her outstanding academic achievements made her one of the first women in Afghanistan to have a career in the judiciary. In order to get to know legal practice, she completed the “Stage” training course at the Afghan Public Prosecutor's Office (1990–1991). She was then appointed as a law professor at Kabul University, where she taught from 1992 to 2011.

Hamida Barmaki's academic focus was on the basics of civil law. She was one of the few Afghan scholars who have an in-depth knowledge of the Islamic and western-continental legal traditions on which the hybrid Afghan legal system is based. Her work includes numerous magazine articles and books in Dari , including an academic paper on the "Interpretation of Statutes" (University of Kabul, 2002) and a master's thesis in English ( University of Bologna , unpublished, 2004). Her last work, an extensive treatise on the law of duty, was left unfinished.

Hamida Barmaki's academic work was characterized by a profound knowledge of the complex Afghan legal system. In order to achieve this goal, she not only used the classic methods of interpreting Islamic and secular law, but also examined the legal problems from a comparative perspective in order to gain ideas for solving legal problems from other legal systems. To do this, she studied the necessary literature in Dari, English and Arabic. At the university, Professor Barmaki was valued by her students and colleagues for her analytical skills and her patient and kind manner.

In addition to her degree from the University of Kabul, Barmaki earned a Masters in Development, Innovation and Change from the University of Bologna , Italy. In December 2010 she received an invitation from the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg to start work on her planned doctoral thesis. At her faculty, Hamida Barmaki advocated the establishment of an LL.M. Program, which she saw as an important prerequisite for training a new generation of outstanding lawyers.

Use as a human rights activist

In addition to her academic career, Hamida Barmaki has been committed to human rights from a young age . As a presenter for Radio Television Afghanistan (1985–1987), she campaigned for women's rights . During the civil war she wrote an article entitled “The role of women in the social reconstruction of Afghanistan” (published in “Afghanistan-i-Fardah”, Dari, 1993). She linked her academic work with the nonviolent struggle for the rights of the weak in Afghan society. After the fall of the Taliban regime, she held several public offices and was appointed to responsible public offices. She worked as a member of the Women's Council of Kabul University, as a representative in the Extraordinary Loja Jirga (2002) and the Peace Jirga (2009). In 2009 she founded the human rights organization Khorasan Legal Service Organization (KLSO). The main aim of this was to raise citizens' awareness of their rights and, in particular, to offer women and marginalized groups in society free legal support. In the same year that the KLSO was founded, Hamida Barmaki was named in the presidential palace as a possible candidate for the ministerial post in the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs .

From March 2008 until her death, Hamida Barmaki worked as a representative of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL), a research institute based in Heidelberg. Together with an Afghan-German group of scientists, she initiated and implemented numerous projects to modernize the country's legislation and judicial institutions - especially the Supreme Court - and to promote the development of a legal science culture on an international level.

She previously held other important positions, including project coordinator for the Institut International Pour Les Études Comparatives (IIPEC), head of the legal and political science department of the National Center for Policy Research and the University of Kabul, and (2006–2008) legal advisor to Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) (2006), Director of the Women’s Rights Awareness Program of the Asia Foundation (2004), Program Director of the Afghan Women Lawyer's Council (2003–2004), Member of the Gender and Law Commission ( UNIFEM ) (2003–2004 ) and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Kabul (2002).

Commissioner for Children's Rights at the AIHRC

In 2009 Hamida Barmaki was appointed Commissioner for Children's Rights at the independent Afghan Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), but she continued to work for the Max Planck Institute. In her new position she found not only national but also international recognition. Hamida Barmaki tried to protect children in war-torn Afghanistan and himself traveled to the provinces to investigate the cases. She also launched research projects and did not hesitate to criticize her own government. One result of their work is a study of the increasing number of child abuse . Immediately after publication, Hamida Barmaki initiated a joint women's and children's rights seminar organized by the Max Planck Institute and the AIHRC. At the same time, her fight against the employment of minors by the Afghan police and against the "practice and other forms of sexual abuse" began. Representatives of the Afghan state and the United Nations wanted to sign an agreement on this two days after her death. Professor Barmaki also looked at the problem of minors. Together with civil society activists, academics and lawyers from state institutions, she developed marriage forms and other tools aimed at improving the judgment of underage girls.

Hamida Barmaki also took a position in the discussion on the relevance of customary law in the Afghan judicial system. She advocated a modern judicial system based on the Western model, as it had already existed before the Afghan Civil War . She rejected proposals to legalize traditional institutions and forms of conflict resolution such as the Pashtuns -Jirgas, who largely ignore human, women's and children's rights .

Death and remembrance

On Friday, January 28, 2011, Hamida Barmaki, her husband Massoud Yama (* 1968) - a doctor at the Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan Hospital and an employee of the Ministry of Finance - and their four children Narwan Dunia (* 1995), Wira Sahar (* 1997), Marghana Nila (* 2000) and Ahmad Belal (* 2007) murdered in an attack in the “Finest” supermarket in Kabul.

At least two other people died in the attack, including the judge candidate Najia (b.Siddiqullah Sahel), who was taking part in a legal training course organized by the Heidelberg Max Planck Institute with the help of Hamida Barmaki. Seventeen people were injured. Hizb-i Islāmī and the Taliban assumed responsibility for the attack. However, one man who later confessed to the crime claimed he was part of the Haqqani network. The attack was completely unexpected, as such incidents rarely occur during the Afghan weekend. The background to the attack remained unclear; it could have been directed against employees of the private security company Academi (formerly Xe or Blackwater), against French diplomats or against a high-ranking Afghan politician.

Commentators sharply criticized the fact that the Afghan government was openly conducting "peace talks" with the same organizations that claimed responsibility for this act of extreme violence against civilians.

Hamida Barmaki left behind her parents Rahimuddin and Anissa and her mother-in-law, the respected former senator and representative of the Afghan Independent Constitutional Control Commission, Professor Mahbooba Huqoqmal. About two thousand friends and colleagues came to the funeral on January 29, 2011.

The next day, over ten thousand people remembered the deceased in the great Id Gah Mosque in Kabul. International media such as the New York Times , the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and La Repubblica reported on the events.

The Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) organized another commemoration on February 1, 2011. Immediately after her death, Hamida Barmaki was often referred to as a shahid (martyr). However, various voices have been raised against the use of this expression, since the term martyr is also used by terrorist groups. This does not do justice to the peaceful engagement and the tolerant character of Hamida Barmaki. All in all, her extraordinary achievements and the great sympathy that followed her death mean that Hamida Barmaki can now be seen as a symbolic figure in Afghan society.

Plans by academic colleagues to erect a memorial in memory of Hamida Barmaki on the campus of Kabul University were rejected by the university management, as was the plan to establish a modern law library at the Faculty of Law and Political Science and to name it after it, although the German federal government was ready to offer the necessary financial resources. Representatives of the Max Planck Institute presented the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission with a portrait of the lawyer that had already been painted for the library. A request that the roundabout in front of the "Finest supermarket" should be named after Hamida Barmaki is pending with the President of Afghanistan.

Some of Hamida Barmaki's closest colleagues founded the Hamida Barmaki Organization for the Rule of Law (HBORL) in Kabul. This non-governmental organization was named after her to honor Hamida Barmaki's outstanding commitment to the rule of law and human rights in Afghanistan. In addition, the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law has named an academic program after Hamida Barmaki, as part of which “Hamida Barmaki doctoral scholarships” are awarded to Afghan lawyers and law lecturers. The Max Planck Foundation and the Hamida Barmaki Organization worked closely together at times.

The University of Leicester (UK) and the University of Graz (Austria) held commemorations to commemorate Professor Barmaki's commitment to the rule of law and human rights.

Her sister, the poet Abeda Sakhi, wrote The Garden in memory of Hamida.

Publications (selection)

  • 2008 - Law of Obligations (textbook, University of Kabul)
  • 2007/2008 - Causes of political instability and possible options for its improvement in Afghanistan (National Center for Policy Research, University of Kabul)
  • 2007 - Political women's rights in Islam (magazine article, published in "Huquq" magazine of the Faculty of Law and Political Science)
  • 2006 - Women's rights in Islam and in Afghanistan's statutes (brochure, Asia Foundation, Kabul)
  • 2006 - Reba and the reasons for her prevention (magazine article, published in the "Adalaat" magazine of the Ministry of Justice)
  • 2006 - Individual contracts (journal article, published in "Huquq" magazine of the Faculty of Law and Political Science)
  • 2005 - The role of women in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, integration of women in the labor market, status in exile and development of ICT (Master's thesis, University of Bologna, Italy)
  • 2004 - Violence against women (magazine article, published in "Human Rights Magazine", Kabul)
  • 2004 - Political idioms of the constitution and the Bonn Agreement (National Center for Policy Research, Kabul University)
  • 2004 - Polygamy (magazine article, published in "Human Rights Magazine", Kabul)
  • 2004 - The political rights of Afghan women (magazine article, published in "Human Rights Magazine", Kabul)
  • 2003 - Peaceful approaches to conflict resolution (magazine article, published in "ICRC Magazine", Kabul)
  • 2002 - Interpretation of the statutes (thesis published by the University of Kabul)
  • 1993 - The role of women in the social reconstruction of Afghanistan (article published in the brochure "Afghanistan-i-Fardah")
  • 1991 - Robbery in criminological investigation (scientific paper, Kabul University)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ UNICEF: UNICEF Afghanistan mourns the death of Hamida Barmaki . January 29, 2011. Retrieved February 5, 2011.
  2. ↑ http://bologna.repubblica.it/cronaca/2011/02/01/news/addio_hamida_di_uccisa_a_kabul_dopo_un_anno_all_alma_mater-11905567
  3. ↑ KLSO was partially funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. See http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/middle-east-and-northern-africa/afghanistan
  4. ↑ http://www.mpil.de/red/afghanistan  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.mpil.de  
  5. ↑ http://www.iipec.eu
  6. ↑ http://www.ncpr.af/
  7. ↑ http://www.areu.org.af/
  8. ↑ http://asiafoundation.org/
  9. ↑ http://www.ww4report.com/node/8161
  10. ↑ See: http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2010/11/22/child-sexual-abuse-cases-increased-afghanistan and http://www.rferl.org/content/Outrage_NATO_Kabul_Childrens_Fears/2228600.html
  11. ↑ http://www.rferl.org/content/Outrage_NATO_Kabul_Childrens_Fears/2228600.html
  12. ↑ http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2011/02/21/afghanistan-family-bombing
  13. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/world/asia/30kabul.html?_r=3
  14. ↑ See: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-12417018 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8316306/Afghan-suicide-attack -was-planned-from-insurgents-prison-cell.html
  15. ↑ See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/world/asia/29afghan.html
  16. ↑ http://www.afghan-bios.info/index.php?option=com_afghanbios&id=693&task=view&start=1139&Itemid=2
  17. ↑ See: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/staat-und-recht/rechtspersonen/hamida-barmaki-familienmord-in-kabul-1590301.html and http://bologna.repubblica.it/cronaca / 2011/02/01 / news / addio_hamida_di_uccisa_a_kabul_dopo_un_anno_all_alma_mater-11905567 /
  18. ↑ http://www.aihrc.org.af/home/daily_report/920
  19. ↑ http://www.hborl.org.af
  20. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mpfpr.de
  21. ↑ See: http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2011-archive/october/in-memory-of-a-great-woman and http://trainingszentrum-menschenrechte.uni-graz.at / de / news / detail / article / filmvorfuehrung-lecture-panel discussion
  22. ↑ http://www.transculturalwriting.com/Grassroutes/content/Abeda_Sakha.htm
personal data
SURNAME Barmaki, Hamida
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afghan lawyer and human rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th January 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Kabul
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 2011
Place of death Kabul