'One of my best friends': Former Afghan Olympian remembers slain lawmaker

A former Afghan lawmaker who was killed in her home had been trying to leave the country.

"She was always talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan," her friend Robina Jalali told CTV News. "She was expecting something bad would happen to her."

Former Afghan member of parliament Mursal Nabizada and her bodyguard were gunned down in Kabul on Sunday. First elected in 2019, she remained in office until the Taliban's August 2021 takeover, and was one of at least nine former female members of parliament who were still in the country.

"Mursal Nabizada was not only a colleague, she was one of my best friends," Jalali said through a translator. 

Jalali was the first of two female athletes from Afghanistan to appear at the Olympics in 2004, after the fall of the Taliban three years earlier. Speaking from Albania, where she's been stuck for 16 months awaiting word on her own refugee claim to Canada, Jalali says Nabizada was becoming desperate to flee Afghanistan – but foreign officials weren't responding to her calls.

"Mursal herself sent so many emails and no one got back to her," Jalali claimed. "Until she lost her sweet life."

On Monday, six Canadian members of Parliament from across party lines issued a joint statement urging the federal government to do more to help women who were Afghan lawmakers get to safety in Canada. The MPs from the Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Bloc Quebecois and Green parties said they have been working since October to help former parliamentarians like Nabizada escape the Taliban's "brutal gender apartheid system" where "no female is safe."

"A woman is dead: a female lawmaker, similar to myself," NDP MP Heather McPherson, who is among the MPs, told CTV News. "That woman is dead because we weren't able to bring her to Canada fast enough."

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau highlighted Canada's long involvement in Afghanistan when asked if his government would do more to help the former Afghan lawmakers.

"We know there's more to do, and we're going to continue working to make sure that the most vulnerable people are able to get out," Trudeau told reporters. "At the same time, we have to recognize that the Taliban is not allowing people to leave."

Since Nabizada's death, eight former female lawmakers remain in the country, which has aggressively clawed back basic freedoms for women and girls. 

With files from The Canadian Press