Pen Farthing
Paul "Pen" Farthing (born 1969) is a British former Royal Marines commando and founder of the Nowzad Dogs charity. Personal life. Paul Farthing was born in Essex, England. He became a sergeant in the Royal Marines. He is married to Kaisa Markhus, who worked as the country director for Ascend Athletics, which helped Afghan girls to take part in sports competitions. Founding of the Nowzad charity. Farthing is the founder of Nowzad Dogs charity and author of a number of books, including "Wylie: The Brave Street Dog Who Never Gave Up". In 2006, Farthing was deployed to Afghanistan  where he broke up a street dog fight in the town of Nawzad. One of the dogs, later named Nowzad, followed him during his deployment. Farthing sought to bring the dog home to the UK at the end of his deployment, inspiring him to create the animal charity Nowzad Dogs. Evacuation of animals from Afghanistan (2021). In August 2021, during the fall of Kabul, Farthing decided to stay in the city until his Afghan staff members, along with their family members (a total of 71 people) were granted permission to leave. Well wishers raised more than £200,000 to charter  a flight to evacuate Nowzad's staff, their family members and animals in the charity's shelter. During the Fall of Kabul, Farthing accused the British Ministry of Defence of blocking the evacuation flight from landing at Hamid Karzai International Airport. The Defence Secretary Ben Wallace rejected these claims, stating his department could not get his staff as well as pets through the Taliban checkpoints and the crowd around the airport, and the plane would have had to wait for hours. He added that he was not going to "prioritise pets over people". The Government of the United Kingdom granted  visas for 68 of the 71 staff and their family members on 23 August, the Government of the United Kingdom but did not give permission for the evacuation of the charity's animals. Permission was finally granted on 25 August. On 27 August, the British Armed Forces assisted Farthing and his animals in getting to the airport and Farthing and his animals left Afghanistan on 28 August. The charity's Afghan staff were turned away at an airport checkpoint by the Taliban, who said they did not have the required visa stamps. Criticism. Despite popular support from many quarters, the  events surrounding the evacuation from Kabul were not without criticism. Criticisms included: Diversion of resources from the evacuation. UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Farthing of interfering with efforts to evacuate British nationals and Afghan allies from Kabul, and said he and his supporters were using intimidation tactics and misrepresenting events. "The Sunday Times" obtained a recording of a threatening voicemail Farthing sent to Peter Quentin, a special adviser to Ben Wallace, accusing him of blocking his flight, while also warning he would "destroy" Quentin if he did not approve the flight and immediately grant travel documents to Farthing's  staff and their family members. Farthing's supporters accused the defence ministry of deliberately leaking the audio as part of a smear campaign. Farthing later apologised for the voicemail, stating that he made it out of frustration. The Tonbridge and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, who had served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan, questioned whether evacuating animals from Afghanistan was the best use of resources. "The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport and we’ve just used a lot of troops to bring in 200 dogs. Meanwhile, my interpreter 's family are likely to be killed. As one interpreter asked me a few days ago, 'why is my five year old worth less than your dog?'" Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff likewise questioned whether animals should be prioritised over human lives: "What a story to tell the world about ourselves, amid the chaos of our leaving. What a gift to extremist movements across the Middle East and beyond, who draw their power from the idea that the west holds foreign lives contemptuously cheap; that cats of no conceivable interest to the Taliban can be airlifted out but not human beings  at risk of being hunted down and executed." Alleged personal intervention of the UK Prime Minister. Controversy surrounded whether Farthing and his supporters indirectly lobbied the UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson to intervene - something Johnson denied. Nowzad campaign coordinator and chief executive of the Badger Trust Dominic Dyer stated that he had lobbied the Prime Minister's wife Carrie Johnson and he was in "no doubt" that she had persuaded her husband to intervene. When asked by reporters if either himself or his wife had intervened in the Pen Farthing case, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied any  personal intervention: “I’ve had absolutely no influence on any particular case, nor would that be right.” Raphael Marshall, a former employee of the UK Foreign Office, stated in written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee that the Foreign Office had “received an instruction” from Prime Minister Boris Johnson to use “considerable capacity” to help evacuate animals from charity Nowzad, run by former British Royal Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing. He also alleged that British soldiers were put at risk to help the charity. In January 2022, an email to a Foreign Office team managing part of  the evacuation was revealed. In it an official (name redacted) said that the animal charity Nowzad had "received a lot of publicity" and that “the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated”. This contradicted Johnson's statement of 7 December 2021 when he said it was “complete nonsense” that he had intervened. Zac Goldsmith had also told the House of Lords at that time that the prime minister’s claims were “entirely accurate”. In light of the email evidence of January 2022, shadow defence secretary John Healey stated that the prime minister had “once again” been  “caught out lying about what he has been doing and deciding” and that he should "never have given priority to flying animals out of Afghanistan while Afghans who worked for our armed forces were left behind.” On 27 January 2022, Johnson denied intervening, and said that claims that animals had been prioritised over people was "total rhubarb".