Friederike Stahlmann, M.A. in religious studies, M.A. in international and compar-ative legal studies, has since 2002 specialised in social, religious and legal issues in Afghanistan and conducted long-term research in Afghanistan as a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale) and member of the International Max Planck Research School on Retaliation, Mediation and Punishment. She regularly serves as an expert consultant on Afghanistan in asylum cases before British and German courts.