JK Rowling secretly raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to save 100 women lawyers and their families from being killed in Afghanistan.

JK Rowling has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to save more than 100 women lawyers killed in Afghanistan and their families.

The Harry Potter author made her big donation as Britain and America’s swift withdrawal from Kabul led to hundreds of female judges, prosecutors and lawyers being threatened by the Taliban.

Together with a million dollars from the businessman and philanthropist Lord Michael Hintze as well as large sums of money from other prominent personalities and smaller donations from the public, a total of 508 Afghans were brought to safety.

In a life-and-death operation, the lawyers and their families were forced to hide in basements before being smuggled to airports and flown to freedom.

Pictured: Women and children are ordered to wait on their hips outside the Taliban-controlled checkpoint at Abbey Gate before proceeding to the British military-controlled entrance to the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2021

The generosity of Ms Rowling, author of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, among others, in the 2021 rescue was only revealed in a debate in the House of Lords on Thursday.

Lord David Alton told the chamber how the author and Lord Hintze stepped forward “at a Schindler’s List moment” to help when veteran human rights barrister Baroness Helena Kennedy needed money to recruit women lawyers – mostly judges – and save their families.

Lord Alton said that thanks to “spontaneous, generous and very substantial” private funding; “About 500 people were evacuated – 103 were lawyers, all of whom were on the Taliban’s kill lists with their children and husbands.

“Having met some of the women judges, I know that the intervention of the noble Lord and the author JK Rowling undoubtedly saved many lives.”

Baroness Kennedy told the Daily Mail last night that she had become close to lawyers in Afghanistan after she introduced female judges into the country’s legal system when the Taliban were toppled by America, Britain and their allies in 2001.

But when US President Joe Biden withdrew his troops from the crisis country in August 2021 and Britain followed suit, these lawyers were killed.

Baroness Kennedy (pictured) told the Daily Mail last night that she had made good connections with lawyers in Afghanistan after helping to introduce women judges into the country’s legal system when America, Britain and their allies overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

Pictured: Malnourished mothers and babies wait for help and screening at a World Food Program clinic in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 26, 2023

Baroness Kennedy, a director of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, said: “Exactly two years ago, two female judges of the Kabul High Court were murdered – it really scared all female judges.

Then, in August of that year, during the military evacuation from Afghanistan, I received frantic calls from judges hiding in their basements.

“The Taliban were released from prison and threatened and persecuted these women, some of whom they imprisoned for domestic violence and other crimes.

“It was clear that these women were high on the list of those at risk of death, but only a handful aboard military jets.”

Baroness Kennedy soon learned that chartering a plane from Afghanistan would cost £650,000 per flight.

The 508 people she was eventually able to help filled three flights, but also needed safe housing and secret transportation to airports. They would then be housed in Athens – chosen because the president was a judge – while they sought asylum worldwide.

This meant a total of £4 million was needed.

The generosity of Ms Rowling, author of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, among others, in the 2021 rescue was only revealed in a debate in the House of Lords on Thursday

Lord Hintze, a former Goldman Sachs hedge fund tycoon of Australian descent who now lives in the UK, made £800,000 after Baroness Kennedy told him it was “a Schindler’s List moment”.

And Miss Rowling, fabulously wealthy thanks to the success of her books and subsequent films about the young wizard Harry Potter, was quick to respond to the desperate cries of the judges in Afghanistan.

Baroness Kennedy said: “JK Rowling just said, ‘I want to help these women.’

“She gave me hundreds of thousands of pounds, a very substantial amount, to pay for boarding and living expenses.”

Baroness Kennedy said of the 508 rescued, around 60 were now in the UK.

Miss Rowling, 57, has come under fire in recent years for expressing concerns that trans people’s rights threaten women’s rights.

In poverty-stricken Afghanistan, the Taliban have been cracking down since 2021, banning women from working for aid organizations and denying girls access to secondary schools and universities.