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Photographer in Jail: An example of arbitrary Afghan ‘justice’

President Ghani’s spokesman has told AAN that jailed Afghan photographer Najib Musafer will be released from Pul-e Charkhi, although he gave no date. Musafer took a photograph of girls parading in an Education Day ceremony seven years ago and sold it to a production company which turned it into an image advertising Etisalat telephones. One […]

5 Mar 2015 Ehsan Qaane • Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Impunity and Silence: The meagre reaction to the latest HRW report

Human rights abuses in Afghanistan no longer make big waves outside the really concerned circles. Yesterday (on 3 March 2015), Human Rights Watch released a hard-hitting piece of meticulous research looking at the ease with which gross human rights violations and war crimes are still committed by the powerful in Afghanistan: “Today We Shall All […]

4 Mar 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Rights and Freedoms

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (13): What should Afghanistan do with America’s foreign detainees?

The United States bequeathed Afghanistan a huge problem when it finally and completely transferred its detention facility at Bagram to the Afghan government in December 2014. For the previous 12 months, it had been urgently trying to get rid of all of the 50 or so foreigners it held there. In the end, it failed […]

2 Mar 2015 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

“An attempt to wipe out history”: The destruction of the Bamian Buddha colossi in 2001

On 26 February 2001, the leader of the Afghan Taleban movement, Mullah Muhammad Omar, ordered from his headquarters in Kandahar that “all statues and non-Islamic shrines in the different areas of the Islamic Emirate must be broken” because they were worshipped by people of non-Islamic religious beliefs and were therefore ‘idols.’ This kind of worship, […]

1 Mar 2015 Kate Clark • Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

Because of Impunity: UN reports Afghan forces still torturing Afghans

It is two years since UNAMA last reported on torture by Afghan security forces of detainees suspected of conflict-related crimes. In the wake of its 2013 report, former President Karzai was stung into investigating the matter and instituted steps to try to root torture out. ISAF also strengthened its monitoring of detainees it transferred to […]

25 Feb 2015 Kate Clark • Rights and Freedoms

Six Days That Shook Kabul: The ‘3 Hut uprising’, first urban protest against the Soviet occupation

Today 35 years ago, the first large, urban uprising against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan took place in Kabul. It was eight weeks after Soviet tanks had rolled into the country to save the regime of the PDPA, which had taken over power in a coup d’etat 20 months earlier and quickly run up against […]

22 Feb 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Context and Culture

The Human Cost of the Afghan War: UN reports sharp rise in the killed and injured

Evidence – if more was needed – of the intensification of the Afghan war has come in the United Nations’ annual report on civilian casualties. 25 per cent more civilians were killed in the conflict in 2014 than in 2013, almost all Afghans by Afghans. Most civilians are now being killed in ground engagements, an […]

18 Feb 2015 Kate Clark • War and Peace

Electoral Reform, or rather: Who will control Afghanistan’s next election?

President Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah, in the September 2014 agreement, agreed to electoral reforms “to ensure that future elections are credible.” The details of these reforms, when they should take place and who should design them are, however, proving contentious. Meanwhile, parliament has been working on relevant laws, while commissioners of the Independent […]

17 Feb 2015 Martine van Bijlert • Political Landscape

The President’s CEO Decree: Managing rather than executive powers (now with full translation of the document)

It is one of the central documents of the new national unity government, but it has not received much public attention: the presidential decree that lays out the “responsibilities and authorities” of the new Chief Executive Officer and was already issued in December 2014. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig has read the document (find an AAN […]

13 Feb 2015 Thomas Ruttig • Political Landscape

The Shadows of ‘Islamic State’ in Afghanistan: What threat does it hold?

The Islamic State (IS) group, also known by an Arabic acronym, Daesh, has gained a toehold in Afghanistan, although with the loss in a drone strike of its most prominent and recently appointed commander, Rauf Khadem, that toehold is looking precarious. Still, the situation has moved on from when AAN last reported on IS in […]

12 Feb 2015 Borhan Osman • War and Peace