Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Rights and Freedoms

This thematic category comprises of AAN’s reporting on human rights, including women’s rights, media freedom, rule of law, governance and democratisation.

No Country for Good Policemen?

Fabrizio Foschini •

At the NATO summit in Chicago, everybody’s attention seems to be focused on the budget for the defence of Afghanistan and how much donors will spend after 2014, in other words on the quantity of security forces that the country will be able to field. But what about their quality? A new, excellent report on […]

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A Slippery Slope: What Happened to Women’s Rights in March 2012?

Sari Kouvo •

March was an interesting month for women’s rights in Afghanistan: President Hamed Karzai endorsed a statement by the National Ulema Council according to which women are worth less than men; the Afghan government launched its first report under the Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) that, while focusing on […]

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The Trouble with Torture: NDS, Special Forces and the CIA

Kate Clark •

Fresh evidence of abuse in more than a dozen NDS and police facilities has been presented in a report by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and Open Societies Foundations (OSF). The allegations, which include testimony of security detainees being beaten, given electric shocks and having their genitals wrenched, were described by NDS as […]

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The ‘Other Bagram’ (1): A Memorandum for handover

Kate Clark •

President Karzai’s legal advisor, Nasrullah Stanekzai, has confirmed to AAN that there will be detention without trial of Afghans by Afghans when the Detention Facility at Parwan (DFIP), also referred to simply as ‘Bagram’, is handed over to Afghan government control, at the latest, on 8 September 2012. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by […]

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Freeing the ‘Guantanamo Five’ 2: Kafka in Cuba

Kate Clark •

Five Taleban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, whose release is a key demand of the Taleban, prior to/as part of peace talks, have said they are willing to be transferred to Qatar. President Karzai had said they had to be handed over to his government, but after a high level visit by Afghan officials, both Taleban […]

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Releasing the Guantanamo Five? 1: Biographies of the Prisoners (amended)

Kate Clark •

Releasing Taleban from Guantanamo Bay is on the agenda – in the context of finding a negotiated end to the conflict. Four senior and one junior Taleban official may be freed, or exchanged for the captured US soldier, Bowe Bergdahl. The idea has caused consternation among some in the US Congress, as well as consternation […]

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Women’s Day in Afghanistan: Where the ‘Personal is still Political’

Sari Kouvo •

International Women’s Day is a good opportunity to reflect on the legal advances made by Afghan women over the past decade and what challenges remain to turn laws on paper into reality. It is particularly needed after the President’s endorsement of the recent Ulama Council statement that, among a number of other points, addresses Afghan […]

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Protests and Factional Conflict in Sarepul

Thomas Ruttig •

Since 8 December last year, demonstrations are continuing in Sarepul. While this remote northern province has been one of the areas least affected by the insurgency for many years, of late it has been pulled into the vortex of the Northern insurgency, too. But the protests have a different background: their origins lie in local […]

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Women and Reconciliation (4): A Response to Anatol Lieven’s Afghan Books Review

Sari Kouvo •

Never propose a political system or solution for anybody that you could not live with yourself, not even for women. AAN’s Sari Kouvo comments on Anatol Lieven’s review ‘Afghanistan: The Best Way to Peace’ in the February 2012 issue of the New York Review of Books and notes that Lieven’s ‘best way’ for women is […]

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What Next for the AIHRC (2): Civil Society Responses

Sari Kouvo •

When three of the nine members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) were removed by President Hamed Karzai in December, it laid bare the fragile position of human rights activism in Afghanistan. In AAN’s second blog* on the removal of the AIHRC Commissioners, Sari Kouvo takes a look at how the President’s move […]

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Another Blow to Justice: Three Commissioners Fired from the AIHRC

Thomas Ruttig •

Three of the nine members of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), one of the most successful, outspoken and internationally venerated institutions of post-Taleban Afghanistan, are losing their posts. What has been declared as a normal process, of bringing fresh blood into the commission, smells very political, though. It rather looks as if this is […]

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The Past is Here to Stay: Listening to Afghan Voices on Justice and Reconciliation

Sari Kouvo •

The abuses and violations suffered by Afghans during the conflicts are all but forgotten, and although pragmatic about what is possible in the current security environment, Afghans seem to view reconciliation and justice as intimately linked. AAN’s Sari Kouvo takes a look at recent publications by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) documenting Afghan […]

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