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.

After two years in legal limbo: A first glance at the approved ‘Amnesty law’

Sari Kouvo •

(Updated: 30 September 2017) – Impunity is certainly a problem in Afghanistan, but now impunity has been made into law. The so-called amnesty law (now titled the National Reconciliation, General Amnesty and National Stability Law) was published in the official gazette in December 2008 (Qaus 1387). While opinions differ about whether the law was formally passed […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

An Ugly Kind of Security

Thomas Ruttig •

The new security regulations announced in the US already draw criticism. Rightly so because they smell like racial and political profiling – plus a pinch of the bad old ‘axis of evil’ thinking. All citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen plus ‘nations considered “state sponsors of terrorism”’ […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Time to Work with Warlords? What?

Thomas Ruttig •

I did not believe my eyes when I reviewed what the international media have printed about Afghanistan over Christmas: A fellow of a famous US university’s Human Rights Policy(!) institute proposes that it is ‘time to work with Afghan warlords’ (maybe not his own headline) and that ‘if President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Happy Christmas (But war isn’t over)

Thomas Ruttig •

‘Happy Xmas (War is over)’ – this was John Lennon’s wish in his beautiful 1971 holiday’s single already. The ex-Beatle (killed already 29 years ago) wasn’t referring to Afghanistan, obviously, then. In that year, Afghanistan was experiencing another of a series of drought years which would seriously undermine the country’s apparently so stable monarchy. Kabul […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Rearranging election outcomes while the IEC archive burns

Martine van Bijlert •

While people across the world are wrapping their last gifts and doing their last Christmas shopping, Afghanistan still has unfinished election business. And it is clear that we haven’t seen the last of all the bizarre twists and turns. (1)  The latest twist is a mysterious fire in the IT department of the Independent Electoral […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Afghanistan’s democrats; from underground to marginalisation (MEI paper repost)

Thomas Ruttig •

This is the second repost of an AAN contribution (without the footnotes) to the Middle East Institute’s recent publication “Afghanistan 1979-2009. In the Grip of Conflict”. Thomas Ruttig was one of the 53 experts who contributed essays on Afghanistan’s much conflicted recent history. In the spring of 2000 some 25 Afghan women and men secretly […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

NDS detention – not just a Canadian problem

Martine van Bijlert •

Former diplomat to Kabul, Richard Colvin, caused quite a stir in Canadian politics with his testimony to a parliamentary committee on the Afghan mission on 18 November 2009. Colvin described how he repeatedly alerted his superiors to the fact that prisoners handed over to the NDS (National Directorate of Security) were likely to face torture […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Kabul Diary (2): A Ring of Steel Sheets

Thomas Ruttig •

Finally, the long expected rain is falling in Kabul. But what’s good for next year’s crops makes life miserable for people in the cities. And for the first time, there were hours-long complete traffic break-downs in Kabul yesterday and today afternoon. Although President Obama today announced that he plans ‘to finish the job’ in Afghanistan […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

AAN Guest Blog: Anti-fraud measures in the Afghan elections

ARGO •

The procedures to cope with the electoral fraud in Afghanistan become more and more complicated, as is the relationship between the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC). The following guest blog authored by our partners from ARGO in Italy bring light into the affair. In the Afghan electoral field two bodies […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Teeth, flowers and another tale of violence

Martine van Bijlert •

Every day in Afghanistan is full of stories. Most of them with a fair share of bad luck and wry humour and usually quite a bit of violence. This story is about – let’s call him Hamidullah. Hamidullah comes from a place not far from Kabul. It is commander country. In the past he fought under […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

Subscribe to receive updates from the Afghanistan Analysts Network

Sign up