Faizullah Jalal

[1][2] Professor Faizullah Jalal has been an activist for human rights, peace, equality, and democracy in Afghanistan for almost four decades, standing up for these causes in the face of a series of governments.

During his 18 months-long imprisonment, he was repeatedly tortured and was actually sentenced to death by hanging until he finally won release on the basis of his young age, being only 17 then.

When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s Professor Jalal was repeatedly arrested for allegedly teaching liberal course materials in the Law and Political Science Department at Kabul University.

[4][5] In 2001, after the collapse of the Taliban regime, Professor Jalal was elected by his Kabul neighbors to the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) of Afghanistan.

He and his family survived violent attacks explicitly directed at them, largely as a result of Professor Jalal's actions and public statements.

[10] His TV broadside, delivered "live" in direct response to a Taliban spokesman appearing by video in an interview segment, was watched by many thousands of riveted Afghan viewers.

Outside the country Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Scholars at Risk, members of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, the UK Parliament, and multiple Afghan diplomatic missions still associated with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan called for his liberation, along with many rights activists and individual scholars who found his detention deplorable as an arbitrary assault on personal and academic freedom.

[20] Daughter Hasina Jalal told VOA News afterward that domestic and international pressure had led to her father's release.

[21] Speaking on VOA sister network Radio Azadi, Jalal himself insisted true to form that despite the Taliban warning him to be more respectful, he would continue "telling the truth".