Maria Bashir

Maria Bashir is a prosecutor based in Afghanistan and the only woman to ever hold such a position in the country . Bashir also featured in the 2011 Time 100, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world composed by Time.

Early life and education Bashir, the eldest child in her family, was a bright student right from her school days. She received encouragement from her late father to further her studies beyond school level, in a country that is very restrictive in its attitude towards women. When the entrance exams for her Graduate schooling required her to choose three options, she filled the application with 'Law' under all of them. Bashir has two sons and a daughter. The eldest son studies in Germany, and other two (Sajad and Yasaman) are being home schooled, as death threats directed at Bashir and her family make formal schooling difficult. Shortly after her move to Herat, in 1995, the Taliban occupied the city and stopped women from working. Bashir had to stay indoors, like other women, until 2001, when the American invasion enabled women to start working again, at which time she resumed her previous role as Criminal Investigator. Bashir, however, was critical: stating that though the new constitution provided equal rights to women, many judges still subscribed to the old Islamic Sharia Law. After stating that the lack of freedom women have to choose their partners, she noted that while men are not tried for adultery, women were still being stoned to death for similar charges. Commenting on the biased divorce process and the way husbands win custody of children, she said women preferred suicide to the latter. Briefing more on the prevailing corruption issues in Afghanistan, she suggested a structural reorganisation, with an end to appointing people based on their ethnicity, as was being done by Hamid Karzai. She also recommended that the anti corruption efforts can only be successful if they are coupled with salary increases for the public servants, as the meagre salaries that they receive now forces them to look 'elsewhere' to supplement them. She also showed her concern on the lack of enforcing power of the laws, which makes the legal system powerless.

Assassination attempts Bashir's appointment was not taken well by the fanatics, for her being a woman. Added to it were the anti-corruption activities and her emboldening the women victims of domestic abuse to take their husbands to court. She started receiving telephonic threats, demanding her resignation. Some Herat-based clerics also issued a fatwa on unescorted women in public places. This alarmed Bashir, who requested the state authorities to provide her security. But the authorities paid no heed to her requests and later in 2007, a bomb exploded outside her home, around the time when her children would usually be playing outside. It was raining then, and hence her children were indoors. Seeing the threats to her life, the U.S. government hired armed guards and provided her with an armored land cruiser. In another incident, one of her bodyguards' sons was kidnapped and murdered, with the perpetrators mistaking him for Bashir's son. Events such as these forced Bashir's kids to take up home schooling which concerns Bashir for having been the reason for their not receiving formal schooling.