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.

Will There Ever be Accountability for War Crimes in Afghanistan? Two reports take stock of past failures and make some proposals 

Kate Clark •

Accountability for war crimes and human rights violations in Afghanistan has been on the agenda this week at the 57th annual session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. For almost half a century, various Afghan factions, governments and foreign forces have perpetrated abuses – indiscriminate bombing, torture and rape, arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, massacres […]

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Treating Drug Users in Afghanistan: How to respond to a massive problem? 

Jelena Bjelica • Rohullah Sorush •

Afghanistan was, until recently, famously, the largest cultivator of illegal opiates in the world. Less well-known is that it is among the countries with the highest prevalence rates of drug use. In April 2022, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) banned poppy cultivation and subsequently, in January 2023, its supreme leader issued an order saying […]

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1980s Pul-e Charkhi Commander Walks Free: War crimes conviction overturned by Dutch Court of Appeal 

Kate Clark •

A senior figure overseeing the notorious Pul-e Charkhi prison in the 1980s who was convicted of war crimes in the Netherlands, where he had been given asylum, has seen his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal. His lawyers successfully argued that Abdul Razaq Aref’s crimes – arbitrary deprivation of liberty, cruel and inhuman treatment, […]

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War Crimes in the First Two Decades of the Afghan Conflict: Republishing the UN Mapping Report 

Kate Clark •

In 2004, a major report mapping the war crimes and human rights violations committed in Afghanistan between 1978 and 2001 was published by the United Nations before being swiftly taken down under political pressure, allegedly from then president Hamed Karzai, some of his ministers and foreign backers and from within the UN. What became known as […]

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A Pay Cut for Afghan Women Working in the Public Sector: “What can you do with 5,000 afghanis?”

Jelena Bjelica • Roxanna Shapour •

The order by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), Hibatullah Akhundzada, to cut the salaries of women on the public payroll to just 5,000 afghanis (70 US dollars) a month was a bombshell. The Amir’s order was short and ambiguously worded, driving anxiety and speculation: did it apply to all women working […]

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Where Are My Rights? Afghan retirees appeal for their pensions

Ali Mohammad Sabawoon • Jelena Bjelica •

Afghanistan’s retired public sector employees have not received their pensions since the toppling of the Republic and the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August 2021. In the almost three years since then, their pleas to the government to start paying what is their due have fallen on deaf ears. In April this […]

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Bostan Karim (L) and Abdul Zahir (C), two former prisoners held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, arrive at Kabul airport in Kabul airport. Photo: AFP, 12 February 2024

Home at Last: After more than 20 years, two former inmates of Guantanamo reach Afghanistan

Kate Clark •

Two more Afghan former inmates of the United States’ Guantanamo detention camp have finally returned home after more than two decades incarcerated or in exile. Abdul Zahir from Logar was detained by US forces and rendered to Guantanamo in July 2002, while Bostan Karim from Paktia was arrested by Pakistan a month later and handed […]

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Dreams Deferred (Again): The last remaining Afghan in Guantanamo loses his latest bid for freedom

Kate Clark •

The last Afghan still held in Guantanamo, Muhammad Rahim from Nangrahar province, has failed in his latest attempt to persuade the United States authorities to release him. The US continues to assert that he was a translator, courier and facilitator for al-Qaeda leaders and even though it is more than two years since US forces […]

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New UN Report Charts the Emirate’s Treatment of Detainees: Allegations of torture and ill-treatment

Kate Clark •

UNAMA has released its first report dedicated to the treatment of detainees since the Taleban takeover and alleges that the use of torture by the police and General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) is “systemic.” The report details methods of torture familiar to earlier generations of detainees – electric shocks, beating and suspension – but also […]

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What Do Young Afghan Women Do? A glimpse into everyday life after the bans

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Since coming to power, the Taleban authorities have issued many edicts, decrees, declarations and directives limiting, restricting, suspending or banning basic freedoms for women and girls. Afghan women are no longer free to go to public parks, gyms and other public spaces and are banned from boarding planes and leaving the country on their own; they cannot […]

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An American flag seen through a broken window from inside a vacant airplane hangar used by the media at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (picture reviewed by US military). Photo: Brennan Linsley/Pool/AFP, 16 July 2009.

The Last Afghan in Guantanamo: Pressure mounts on US to deal with the remnants of its ‘War on Terror’ 

Kate Clark •

It is more than three years since the United States signed its peace deal with the Taleban and almost two since the last American soldier left Afghanistan. Yet the US still insists that the last Afghan it holds in relation to that war – at its prison camp in Guantanamo – would be a threat […]

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From Land-grabbing to Haircuts: The decrees and edicts of the Taleban supreme leader 

Kate Clark •

The decrees, edicts and instructions of Taleban supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, from 2016, when he became leader, to May 2023, have been published. They make fascinating reading, tracing some of what the leadership felt was important to ban, make obligatory, organise or administer during the insurgency and since recapturing power. Some themes are repeated […]

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