LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: On Tuesday, Angelina Jolie requested assistance from her Instagram followers. The Oscar winner pleaded with her followers to help a man imprisoned in Afghanistan. His offense was standing up for girls and women.
He is the founder and president of @penpathvolunteers, Matiullah Wesa. In rural Afghanistan, he has started libraries and assisted with the reopening of closed schools.
Jolie shared, "@matiullah_wesa is one of many Afghan men who defend the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. He opposed the decision by the Taliban to ban girls from going to school. Now he is in prison. I've written a letter of support to him today. You can leave your own message @penpathvolunteers."
Who is Matiullah Wesa?
On March 27, 2023, Matiullah Wesa was arbitrarily detained by the Taliban's General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) while returning from evening prayer at the mosque.
The GDI raided his house the next day after his arrest and confiscated his personal mobile phone and laptop. The Taliban spokesperson confirmed his arrest on March 29, accusing him of illegal activities.
His family has been denied access to him, and there is no way to challenge the legality of his detention.
Matiullah Wesa is an education activist, the founder, and the leader of PenPath, a collective of 3000 volunteers who campaign on the importance of education, particularly for girls, in Afghanistan's remote districts and provinces.
PenPath implemented volunteer programs to advance human rights and girls' educational access.
Initially, Wesa and his colleagues worked with religious scholars and tribal elders to build community support for educating all children by establishing schools in villages where there was no government education and sending mobile classrooms to the most remote areas through PenPath.
What did Angelina Jolie do in Afghanistan?
Jolie spoke out for Afghanistan's women. One year after US troops left and the Taliban took over the country, the Academy Awards winner, 47, wrote an op-ed for TIME about the horrors that Afghan women continue to face under the oppressive regime.
She recalled meeting a young refugee in Rome who, before the Afghan government was toppled, was "months from qualifying as a doctor" and whose sisters had also been denied an education.
Why did Angelina Jolie go to Afghanistan?
Goodwill Ambassador for the UN agency for refugees, Jolie, went to Afghanistan, where she witnessed both the benefits and challenges of repatriation and reintegration.
She personally witnessed the country's challenging humanitarian situation and urged increased international aid to meet urgent needs.
Jolie's two-day trip took place before a global conference in 2008 on repatriation and reintegration was held in Kabul the following month.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan and UNHCR are co-hosting the event, which will bring together donor agencies and government departments to discuss the best ways to increase the nation's capacity for absorbing refugees in order to facilitate further repatriation.