Pashto Fluency Put Law Student in Position to Help Gitmo Detainees
Although she was still in law school, Mahvish Khan had a critical skill that most trained attorneys representing detainees at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay didn’t—as the daughter of two Afghan immigrants, she grew up speaking Pashto.
So when she offered her services to lawyers representing Gitmo detainees via the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, attorneys were quick to take her up on the suggestion, the Detroit Free Press reports in a lengthy article about her experiences there.
“CCR called me and said, ‘We have this law student who speaks Pashto,’ ” recounts Philadelphia attorney Peter Ryan, who represented a number of detainees. “All of my clients were Pashto-speaking.”
In addition to providing translation services, Khan also helped him win his clients’ trust, because she shared their cultural background. Although spending time at the prison was disturbing, it was also a rewarding experience, both personally and professionally. Along the way, Khan also wrote a book: My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me, the newspaper article notes. Published by Public Affairs Books, it is list-priced at $25.95.
“I don’t believe that all of the detainees at Guantanamo are innocent or good,” she tells the newspaper. “But I believe that they have a right to a hearing. I believe in our Constitution.”
