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Afghan Female Judges Fear Attacks from Men They One Jailed; Atlanta School Accused of Creating "Black Classes"; Rain to Bring Trouble to South, Relief to Northwest; Carli Lloyd Scores 5 Against Paraguay in Farewell tour. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired September 17, 2021 - 04:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:30:00]

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA) U.S. HOUSE SPEAKER: Out since I've been here. But it is true that there was very grievous concern not just among House Democrats, Senate Democrats, but among those responsible for our national security. That finger on the button, war with a country, an invasion, anything to take attention away from the fact that we were having a peaceful transfer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: In Atlanta, an elementary school is in the spotlight as a civil rights complaint accuses the principal of segregated classes based on race but some black parents say they support the idea.

Plus, we'll hear from a female judge in Afghanistan who fears for her life now that the Taliban have released the men, she once put behind bars. We'll have that story after the break. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back, I'm Kim Brunhuber.

The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has only gotten worse since the U.S. made its chaotic exit just a few weeks ago. The U.N. refugee agency says aid is urgently needed as the situation becomes more desperate by the day. And while many people scrambled to get out of the country, so many others were unable to escape the Taliban. Among those still trying to flee, hundreds of female judges who now fear reprisal attacks from men they jailed in the past.

So, for more that, let's bring in CNN's Anna Coren in Hong Kong. Anna, so as you report unfortunately, some women in particular have very good reason to be scared. What did you find out?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kim, when the Taliban came into power just over a month ago, they promised that women would remain an integral part of society and that this generation of women who have been educated in the last 20 years could continue their jobs and be part of the workforce.

[04:35:02]

That is clearly not the case. Instead, women are being repressed. They are being abused and those who held positions of power like judges now fear for their lives. They say they have targets on their heads.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

COREN (voice-over): Childhood laughter shared by two young sisters who have no idea about the dangers they now face. Their mother, Nabila, was a judge in Afghanistan, a profession now made impossible for women. The Taliban has told them not to return to work. And now, the whole family has a target on their heads.

NABILA, AFGHAN JUDGE (through translator): A day or two after the Taliban arrived in Kabul, my personal number was called and I was threatened with revenge, threatened with murder. And I had to cancel my phone numbers.

COREN (voice-over): The family is currently in hiding in fear of being hunted down by men she put behind bars. Some of whom have now been freed by the Taliban.

NABILA (through translator): Because of this threat from the prisoners, I change my house once every four days. I hide there and I try to never go out.

COREN (voice-over): Her fear compounded after a policewoman, eight months pregnant, was murdered by the Taliban, according to her family. A claim the Taliban deny.

Nabila is one of around 200 women judges left stranded in Afghanistan. Many of them presided over the worst cases of violence against women, including rape, murder, and domestic abuse. Some of them had even travelled to the U.S. for a judicial education program.

Under the cover of darkness and gunfire, a few dozen others have managed to get out. One experienced high court judge risked her life to flee the country after the Taliban came looking for her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Five members of the Taliban came to my area asking my neighbors about me. I relocated again because I was so scared they could find me.

COREN (voice-over): This judge managed to escape with her nieces and nephews on a flight from Kabul after days of waiting at the airport. She wants to keep their identity hidden as she fears for family members back home. They landed safely in Poland and are now trying to get to the U.S. but the judge can't forget the life she left behind.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Now, I feel like I lost everything. Imagine you have a personality, a career, respect, a home, a car, a life and everything, and suddenly you leave everything.

COREN (voice-over): As chaos and uncertainty unfold inside Afghanistan, the U.S. based International Association of Women Judges is trying to help more of their Afghan members to leave. But they say Western countries need to do more.

VANESSA RUIZ, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN JUDGES: Governments need to be better, more agile, more generous, frankly, in giving admission to people who are in danger in Afghanistan. We're not going to abandon them. We're not going to forget them. And we're not going to let the world ignore them.

COREN (voice-over): For those left behind, like Nabila, escape is their only hope as they see no future in their homeland under Taliban rule. But she hopes one day she will be allowed to return to the bench.

NABILA (through translator): We have been working for many years to combat violence, oppression and injustice. And I want to continue with my work.

COREN (voice-over): Her bravery in protecting Afghanistan's women despite the dangers was to create a better future for her daughters, a generation that now faces a dark reality under the new regime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COREN (on camera): Kim, this woman Nabila, she was incredibly brave and courageous in wanted to go on camera, obviously show her face and tell her story. But she said I am speaking on behalf of the other 200 female judges in this country who are trapped. We are pleading with the United States, with the international community, to help us, to help us escape this country, escape Taliban rule.

But you know, it's not just these women. There are other women who are so desperate to get out of the country as well. I was speaking to a human rights activist who is still in Kabul, she is running a shelter looking after dozens of women and girls, and she says she needs to get these people out as well. She said the Taliban, they don't want to hear us, they don't want to see us. You know, she is wondering why they are hated, why women are hated so much now in Afghanistan by the Taliban. She says they want us to live a life not worth living. I mean, they were just truly chilling words -- Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, a dark reality as you said. Great reporting there, Anna Coren out. Really appreciate that.

An Atlanta school community is at the center of an ongoing controversy after a mother claimed the principal was assigning black students to specific classes based on race.

[04:40:00]

But many other parents are speaking up in defense of the principal. CNN's Nick Valencia has the story.

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NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mary Lin Elementary is located in a predominantly white upper middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta. Some parents in the district who would normally send their kids to private school choose instead to send them here, in large part, they say, because of Sharyn Briscoe, a progressive principal whom parents lobbied for years to hire.

But it's Briscoe's alleged conversation about race-based class placement practices that are now the focus of a civil rights complaint.

KILA POSEY, MARY LIN ELEMENTARY SCHOLL PARENT: And she then informed me that that wasn't the Black class.

VALENCIA: She said that wasn't the Black class?

POSEY: That is correct. She said --

VALENCIA: How did you react to that?

POSEY: I just a pit was in my stomach. I was like, what do you mean? Like, I don't understand. We have those?

VALENCIA (voice-over): Of the six total second grade classes at the Atlanta public school, Kila Posey says she was told by the Principal Briscoe that Black students, including Posey's daughter, would only have a choice between two of the classes. In July, she and her husband, who work as the school psychologists, filed a federal complaint with the Department of Education.

POSEY: It may not be your 1950s segregation where you have signs above water fountains in rooms but it's the same thing.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Atlanta public schools investigated the Posey's' claim, saying in a written statement that Atlanta public schools does not condone the assigning of students to classrooms based on race. As such, the district conducted a review concerning allegations of this conduct at Mary Lin Elementary School. At the conclusion of the review, appropriate actions were taken to address the issue and the matter was closed.

A spokesman for APS would not disclose the specifics of the actions it took against the school, telling CNN, they do not share details of personnel decisions. Briscoe, who is Black, remains the school's principal.

POSEY: And I asked her why she was doing it, and she said because she was building community and that's what she was doing. And I kept telling her that she was wrong.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Not everybody agrees with Posey. Some race- relations experts believe that grouping students by race actually could create a healthier environment in classrooms.

KIRA BANKS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST, FOUNDER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR HEALING JUSTICE AND EQUITY: To be able to have that community inside your classroom can be comforting.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Clinical psychologist Kira Banks says there is psychological research supporting the idea of critical mass in the classroom for minority groups, especially at a school like Mary Lin, where Black students make up an estimated 10 percent of the 599 students.

BANKS: Now, to frame those classes as the Black classes, that I think is problematic in the sense of how you frame it and how you articulate the intention and why it's happening. But I think that the desire to make sure that kids don't feel tokenized, that they can go to school and just focus on being in school and being a kid.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would never, ever want my child to be the one Black child in a classroom.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wouldn't wish that upon my kid.

VALENCIA (voice-over): Shortly after the Poseys came forward, these mothers were part of a group of concerned Black parents at the school who wrote a letter in support of Briscoe. They asked us to conceal their identities because of ongoing threatening phone calls to the school in the wake of the segregation claims. They believe Briscoe acted in good faith. If their child's race was allegedly used as a factor in the class placement, they say they're in full support.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I grew up where I was the only Black child in the honors classes in my high school for four years. And when I say that I still have, you know, trauma based on it, I still have trauma based on it. It was very isolating.

Principal Briscoe, she is, you know, is a Black woman. She went to a Black college. She raised two Black sons. There is no one on earth who can say that she does not care about Black children. Even the complainant herself has said that, you know, that her -- that Briscoe supposedly admitted to doing it to build community and so that no one Black child is isolated in a classroom.

VALENCIA (voice-over): But the Poseys say the principal violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and using race to designate classes for Black students. Posey also alleges an after-school program she ran at the school was threatened to be cut in retaliation for her complaint.

A senior attorney for the NAACP legal defense fund believes they have a case, even if the principal says she was trying to do the right thing.

MICHAELE TURNAGE YOUNG, SENIOR COUNSEL, NAACPLDF: The concerns about one's child being the lonely only are sincerely felt concerns. But be that as it may, the law is what it is and does not permit children to be assigned to classrooms based on race.

VALENCIA (voice-over): In a statement to CNN, Briscoe's attorney said she was extremely concerned about the recent allegations of wrongdoing. Given that this is an active investigation, however, Ms. Briscoe is limited in what information she can share right now but is looking forward to telling her side of the story at the appropriate time and place.

[04:45:00] VALENCIA: In her response, she is saying that she wanted to build community. Do you think that this was done in good faith on her part?

POSEY: I don't know because, for me, full stop, it's illegal. So, I can't really get past if it was in good faith because it really doesn't matter at that point it's wrong.

VALENCIA: We reached out to the Department of Education to see if they are going to pursue the Poseys' complaint, but they haven't indicated one way or the other if they well. The Poseys say that they want the leadership at Mary Lin Elementary gone. Meanwhile, the Atlanta public school district says that they will not be commenting on this case further beyond the statement that they've already provided.

Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The victims of the largest financial fraud in history are getting some more money to help cover their losses. The U.S. Justice Department says those impacted by Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme are receiving another $568 million. The payouts to the nearly 31,000 victims are coming from the Madoff Victim Fund set up by the government. Federal officials say they now have recovered about 81 percent of the stolen money.

Rain on two opposite sides of the U.S. but as precipitation specials trouble for one region, the other can't get enough of it, that is coming up. Stay with us.

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[04:50:00]

BRUNHUBER: The world is falling way short of commitments made in the Paris Climate Agreement. Three U.N. agencies report greenhouse gas emissions are increasing despite lockdowns and an economic slowdown during the pandemic, with levels for some sectors returning to pre- pandemic levels. One U.N. expert says that's a surprise.

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PETTERI TAALAS, WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORG. SECRETARY GENERAL: And there is some thinking that the global lockdown would have had positive impact on the real atmosphere which is not the case.

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BRUNHUBER: The report also says the gap between where greenhouse gas emissions are and where they should be a larger than ever. And scientists are calling for bigger cuts in emissions to meet the targets set in Paris.

And European scientists say the hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole is now bigger than Antarctica itself. It appears every year between August and October and breaks down by December when ozone levels usually fall. But this year it's already bigger than what scientists usually see at this stage. The ozone layer protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation. The hole is weighing on chemicals like chlorine and bromine. But the ozone layer is still not expected to fully recover until at least the 2060s.

Now sometimes one person's curse can be another's blessing. The case in point, flash flood watches are in effect across parts of the South as remnants of hurricane Nicholas crawl across the region and keep dumping rain. Precipitation is also in the pipeline for the Pacific Northwest where it can't come soon enough. Derek Van Dam has details.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Kim, just look at the rainfall totals over the past four days. They have been significant across the Gulf Coast states from southeast Louisiana through the Florida Panhandle and it's not going to stop anytime soon. In fact, this remnants of what was hurricane Nicholas just coming to a screeching halt. Slowing down and allowing for the rain and flash flood threat to continue through the course of the day today.

So here is the flood alerts. We have flash flood watches from the Florida Panhandle right through the New Orleans region with a few warnings lining some of the local rivers throughout that area. That is the remnant low from what was hurricane Nicholas just kind of stalling out over this region and bringing in abundant moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

A lot of that moisture will overspread into northern and central portions of Georgia. So, look out metro Atlanta, could have a few inches of rain before it is all said and done. Now this system will eventually dissipate by the end of the weekend, just a few isolated showers and thunderstorms and that moisture southwesterly flow.

Now cross the country on the Pacific Northwest side, we have an atmospheric river event shaping up for the weekend. This is incredible because we have a potential to see more rain from this storm than they do in the entire month of September for Seattle. You would think this is good news for the ongoing wildfires over the Western U.S. over 75 active large wildfires at the moment. Yes, we will get rain that will help the conditions there. But ahead of this system, we have gusty winds that will increase the fire threat and also make the fire behavior more erratic across the region. That's why we have red flag warnings and watches in place for many of the locations across the Western U.S.

Let's talk temperatures today, 66 for Seattle, 74 in New York City, 79 and very humid in Atlanta with that southwesterly flow. New Orleans, you will top 83 degrees. Kim, we'll send it back to you in the studio.

BRUNHUBER: All right, thanks. American soccer superstar Carli Lloyd has a record-setting day. And football star Tom Brady is in no rush to hang up his cleats. CNN sports Don Riddell has that and more in our minute in sports.

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DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORT: The American soccer star Carli Lloyd has begun her farewell tour with the U.S. women's national team and she is making the absolute most of it. In a friendly game against Paraguay Thursday night, Lloyd scored five of her team's nine goals. That haul ties a team record for goals in a single game for this team. She has three more games before she calls it a day.

The NFL legend Tom Brady says that he is in no hurry to call it a day himself. The 44-year-old quarterback who has won a record 7 Super Bowls said on Thursday that he might play until he's 50. He believe that's can do it and then, quote, glide into retirement.

Meanwhile on the field a thrilling Thursday night game between Washington and the Giants. Dustin Hopkins missed a 48-yard field goal as time expired, but an offside penalty gave him another chance from 5 yards closer giving Washington a heart-stopping victory by 30-29.

[04:55:03]

And the golfer Brooks Koepka says that he'll be ready to play for the American team in the Ryder Cup against Europe in Wisconsin next week. The world number nine has been dealing with a wrist injury. The Americans are desperate to win the trophy they have lost seven times out of the last nine. That is your sports headlines in 60 seconds. Back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: And before we go, Aretha Franklin getting some well- deserved R-E-S-P-E-C-T as "Rolling Stone" magazine named it the greatest song of all-time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Aretha Franklin, singing "Respect": R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Take care, TCB. Oh, a little respect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: The list of top 500 songs was created by polling more than 250 artists, song writers and industry figures. It was just amended for the first time in 17 years. So here is the top five.

Number one, "Respect" by Aretha Franklin written of course by the great Otis Redding. Number two, "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy. And number three, "A change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke. Number four, "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan. And rounding out the top five, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

I have to say my list might look a little different, but you can't argue with number one there.

That wrap this is hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "EARLY START" with Laura Jarrett and Christine Romans is after a short break. Please do stay with CNN.

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