Masoda Younasy's first mistake was her unwillingness to conform to the strict rules of conduct governing women in Afghanistan.
Her second was being fearlessly – some might say recklessly – willing to talk about her disdain for customs that render many Afghan women the chattel of their fathers or husbands.
For her perceived insolence, Ms. Younasy was forced to flee the country where her grandfather ruled as king for four decades. She arrived in Toronto Friday from Islamabad after obtaining an exceptional three-year permit to live and work in Canada.
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney signed the papers during a recent trip to Pakistan and India. It is the first time since the Conservatives took office in 2006 that this kind of protection has been extended to someone outside the country.
“She seemed like the future of a democratic Afghanistan and it seemed like an extraordinary case,” Mr. Kenney said.
“We are not in a position to do this on a frequent basis for obvious reasons. But this is someone whose life was clearly in peril if they continued there. And it's my hope that some day she might be able to return to a more peaceful and stable Afghanistan.”
Ms. Younasy, 22, has established her own construction company in Kandahar and an agency that teaches people how to read and to use computers. She has also set up a clinic for drug addicts whose ranks have exploded in her country, where the economy is sustained by the poppy trade.
She mused during an interview with The Globe and Mail last August that she would one day like to run for the presidency of Afghanistan.
In that interview, she described threats on her life that had been made by both the Taliban and by her own uncle who, she said, was enraged by her work and her unconventional behaviour. At that time, however, the immediate danger seemed to have abated.
It resurfaced with a vengeance late last year when her presidential ambitions were reprinted in a newspaper published by the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, a publication available online in both of the local Afghan languages.
“My relations are calling me [to say] that they will kill me because they saw the newspaper and they saw my picture,” Ms. Younasy said in December. She had called the Globe from the home of a friend in Kabul, where she was in hiding.
“I got a message from my uncle,” she said. “He told me that this time we are not going to leave you alive.”
Then her family in Kandahar got a call from the Taliban, who were also looking for her. And one of her best friends, who had occasionally worked with her at the construction company, was gunned down.
Afghan experts said there was no way to help her. Too many supporters of the regime of President Hamid Karzai are trying to get out of the country as the Taliban regaincontrol over vast swaths of land.
Mr. Kenney's staff office was asked for advice. Three hours later, a spokesman for the minister called to say Mr. Kenney was moved by the story and was trying to figure out what he could do to secure Ms. Younasy's safety.
Bureaucrats suggested issuing the permit that is sometimes given to foreigners who are already in Canada on a temporary basis and must remain for humanitarian reasons.
But Ms. Younasy had to get to Pakistan to get the documents, and she was not answering her phone or her e-mail. It took four days for her to resume contact with Canadian officials and to learn the good news.
During that time, her uncle had called the home in Kabul where she was staying to ask whether she was there. “My mom told me change your location and don't tell anyone where you are. So I changed my location and now I am in a hotel,” she explained when she resurfaced.
It took a few days and some wrangling to get her a visa for Pakistan. Finally, on Monday, she flew to Islamabad to obtain the documents that allowed her to get on the plane to Canada Friday.
“These things are really extraordinary,” Mr. Kenney said of the permit.
“We have a particular interest in Afghanistan,” he added. “Our approach to Afghanistan is multifaceted. It's diplomacy, it's development, it's security. And, if there are small things we can do on the immigration side to protect champions of Afghan's social progress and the equality of women, we will do that as well.”
As for Ms. Younasy, her aim is to attend a Canadian university and obtain a political-science degree she might some day put to use in her home country.
In the meantime, her brother and a friend will manage her construction company, which she says has too many outstanding contracts to simply be abandoned. Another friend will run her agency for the poor.
“I am so happy. Finally I am just getting out of this situation. I swear, I thought that my death was fixed,” she said.
