Our mother, Shajia Ayobi, is a 52-year-old survivor of domestic violence and war serving a life sentence in prison. Because of her deteriorating health, largely the result of inadequate medical care while incarcerated, she is also extremely high-risk for COVID-19. We call on Governor Newsom to show compassion and mercy by granting our mother’s request for commutation and allowing her to come home to her family.

Background

A mother to five and a grandmother of two, our mother was born in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, where she grew up surrounded by death and warfare. Seeking safety and a better life, she and her family fled first to Pakistan and then, when she was 16, to the United States. 

A decade later she met my father, who was visiting the United States from Germany. Like my mother, my father had survived the war in Afghanistan and suffered from PTSD due to his time in the military. They soon married and my mother returned with him to Germany, where she gave birth to myself and two of my siblings. In 1998, they returned to the US and gave birth to my youngest sister. Soon after this, we settled in Northern California for good. 

Our father’s PTSD had grown more extreme over time, and by the time we moved to Sacramento, our household was ruled by terror. My father subjected my mother, myself, and my siblings to constant physical and psychological abuse. With little outside support and no safe option of separation or divorce in our Afghan community, my mother was profoundly isolated in her suffering. She feared retaliation, escalated violence, or even death if she tried divorcing him or getting help. 

In December of 2011, my father was murdered in a complicated set of circumstances involving multiple people, including my mother. Terrified of what would happen to her and us if she came forward with the truth, and traumatized by nearly two decades of abuse, my mother initially claimed my father was killed in a carjacking. She has since been honest about her involvement in his death, taking full responsibility for her participation and learning to live with her guilt and remorse. Now, like so many survivors of abuse, she is stuck in prison, criminalized for events that occurred during the most desperate and dangerous time of her life. 

In prison, my mother has constantly sought out and facilitated programming that deepens her understanding of trauma and abusive dynamics, including the Alternatives to Violence Project, which she now facilitates. An active member of the Muslim faith community in prison, my mother’s goal is to one day help other women refugees in devout Muslim communities surviving the isolation of domestic abuse and PTSD.

Our plea for our mother’s release is even more urgent against the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through nearly a decade of incarceration, she has developed diabetes and recently suffered from kidney and bladder infections, all exacerbated by systemic medical neglect in California’s prisons. She is extremely high-risk for COVID-19, and trying to protect herself from infection with minimal access to prevention, including protective supplies.

On the day of my mother's sentencing, she made a final statement in the courtroom promising to remain a part of her children’s lives, no matter what. Against all odds, my mother has kept her promise. She has been with us through our marriages, through the birth of her two grandchildren, through college acceptance letters, through high school and college graduations. All we want is for our mother to be with us again, in person, through the milestones to come.  

As her children, we are the ones most affected by the loss of our father; we know that our mother’s incarceration will not help us heal. What kind of system are we living in that our mother remains in prison, while her own children whom she fought hard to protect -- and the children of the man whose life was lost -- beg for her to come home? 

Please have mercy, Governor Newsom. Commute our mother Shajia Ayobi’s sentence so that she can come home. 

With gratitude,

Masi Ayobi, Mashal Ayobi, Sara Ayobi, Zahra Ayobi, & Sosun Nayemi

Please note: If you choose to sign, change.org provides an opportunity for you to “chip in” money. Please be aware that this money goes to change.org, not to Shajia or her family. Thank you for your support. Please also sign petitions to commute Lucia & Maria, and Patricia.