A leading Afghan journalist and TIME Magazine Woman of the Year was denied entry to Malta last week and deported after travelling to the country to take part in a conference on the situation of women in Afghanistan.
Writing on X, founder and Editor-in-Chief of Rukhshana Media – an outlet that reports on issues facing Afghan women – Zahra Joya spoke of her shock at being denied entry to Malta and forced to return to London.
She said that despite travelling with a valid Schengen visa and departing Heathrow airport “without any issues", she was denied entry to Malta before being “rushed” onto a flight back to London by the police.
Joya said she was “shocked” and “confounded” by the incident, pointing to the seeming contradiction of a female Afghan journalist being refused entry to Malta after being “invited” by Foreign Minister Ian Borg to an event on the experiences of Afghan women.
A Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson said the ministry had been approached “to provide consular assistance” for the conference, facilitating the visa process for several participants.
The spokesperson said Joya had not been included on the list of participants requiring consular support, however, but did not clarify why the journalist had been denied entry while claiming to be in possession of a valid Schengen visa.
He said the ministry had been informed she travelled to Malta with an “unrecognised passport that does not allow entry to Malta and needed assistance”, and that the ministry had “immediately” contacted the respective authorities to remedy the situation.
“Within a few hours a solution was identified but by this time, in line with applicable regulations, Ms Zahra Joya was already on her way back to the UK”, the spokesperson said.
According to the Rukhshana Media website, Joya was five years old when the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, first came to power in 1996 following an armed uprising culminating in the brutal killing of Afghanistan’s then-president.
Determined to attend school despite Taliban rules banning girls’ education, Joya disguised herself as a boy called “Mohammed” and walked two hours to school, the website says.
After the US-led invasion, she trained as a lawyer before working as a journalist from 2011. She now lives in London.
In 2022 Joya was named a TIME Magazine Woman of the Year alongside 11 other women including well-known human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and is the recipient of numerous awards for her journalism and women’s rights.
Women’s rights in Afghanistan have been under attack since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 - 20 years after the group was deposed by a US-led invasion in response to the September 11 attacks by its ally al-Qaeda.
According to the UN, since returning to power the Taliban has issued at least 70 decrees and directives hampering the freedoms of women and girls in Afghanistan, creating an “oppressive environment” and a “marked deterioration” in their quality of life.