Alexander Perkins, the great-grandson of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, wrote in The Telegraph Tuesday asking the government to offer all Afghan interpreters who served alongside British troops asylum in the United Kingdom.
Stating their work went above and beyond simply being translators, Perkins wrote they put themselves in direct danger from Taliban reprisals for their commitment to build a better country, and that "for sustained and dangerous services rendered, our Afghan interpreters surely deserve far more. I would like our petition to precipitate the red-sticker response that Churchill slapped on matters most urgent: "Action this day":
They demonstrated honour, trust and loyalty, which we – and the at least 42,000 signatories of our petition – are now asking the Government to regard and repay. If we do not grant them at least temporary asylum, and a chance to apply for permanent resettlement here, we essentially discount them and ignore our duty of care.
He also told the story of his company's interpreter, Barri Shams, and the danger he faced for aiding the British:
Barri and I went on patrol together twice a day for six months. He was my go-to guy when, for safety’s sake, we had to forewarn locals about likely fire. Inevitably, we grew close. I remember him holding a sergeant’s wound closed after an explosion as we fought our way through enemy compounds. When we were ambushed by the Taliban, Barri was right next to me as rocket-propelled grenades passed between me and the men in front and behind. As we withdrew into cover, enemy bullets were impacting inches from our heads. Somehow, Barri became separated from us. Luckily, we found him crouching behind a wall. After that I made sure he remained at my shoulder.
Shortly after my return to the UK in February 2009, the reprisals against Barri’s family began. His father and one of his brothers were executed by the Taliban. Barri paid a human trafficker to get his mother and sister out of the country – but both drowned after boarding an illegal boat from Greece to Italy. Barri and his surviving brother made it to Frankfurt, where they have languished for two years in an immigration detention facility. Their first application for German asylum failed, and an appeal, heard two weeks ago, seemed equally doomed.
Barri expected immediate deportation to Afghanistan – effectively a death sentence, given his history. But in a volte-face worthy of a courtroom thriller, he handed the judge a sheaf of papers chronicling the campaign mounted in Britain on his behalf. Swayed by what he read, the judge granted Barri and his brother leave to remain in Germany.
Barri is grateful that the Germans have taken him in, but I know he feels that we have betrayed him and let him down. The Government ruling preventing him from coming to the UK states that only interpreters who served for more than a year, and remained until 2012, are eligible for a five-year visa.
Perkins helped deliver the petition Wednesday.
Similar situations have arisen for translators who assisted U.S. troops. The Washington Free Beacon's Alana Goodman reported last week on the Afghan translator Hafez, who charged into enemy fire to help U.S. Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer rescue wounded American service members during one of the most famous battles in the Afghanistan war.
However, Meyer, who received the Medal of Honor, said Hafez, a fake name to protect his identity, is still waiting to receive a U.S. visa he applied for years ago. Goodman reported that he remains in Afghanistan under daily threat from the Taliban while his application is caught in the bureaucratic limbo of the State Department.