Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Justice

Justice

Commemoration in the Basement: Kabul’s hidden war victims museum (2)

Thomas Ruttig •

With the Afghanistan Centre for Memories and Dialogue, a new museum dedicated to the victims of the Afghan wars of the last four decades and their families has opened in Kabul in February this year. It was initially supposed to be housed in the capital’s landmark Behzad cinema but now is confined to a provisional […]

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Photographs of those who disappeared in AGSA custody, placed by family members in the Puligun (Polygon) area of Pul-e Charkhi, where mass graves have been found. Families hold a ceremony every year on 10 December to remember their lost relatives (Photo: Victims’ Families Association, with permission, 2016)

Assadullah Sarwari Freed from Prison: What chances of war crimes trials in Afghanistan?

Ehsan Qaane • Sari Kouvo •

Assadullah Sarwari, one of a handful of convicted Afghan war criminals, has been released from prison in Kabul. As head of the intelligence service immediately after the 1978 communist coup d’état, he was responsible for the torture and arbitrary execution of thousands of detainees. Yet, the lack of transparency and the irregular and illegal aspects […]

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Traditional local jirgas violative of human rights

AAN •

Pajhwok News Agency, 14 December 2013 The Kabul-based news agency picks up a hot iron, with the issue of traditional ('tribal') justice and comes to the conclusion that they "are violative of human rights in many cases and their decisions are illegal and contrary to shariah". (What about the Afghan constitution?) Such jirgas are often "condoning […]

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The Kabul Bank Tribunal: an exercise in containment

Martine van Bijlert •

The Kabul Bank crisis is complicated and multi-layered. Its tentacles reached into almost all centres of power and threatened to embarrass not just the architects of the scam, but practically everybody involved: businessmen, politicians, senior government officials, the various Presidential campaign teams, Parliamentarians, Central Bank staff, international advisers, donors – the list is long. Since […]

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So, this is the office that will investigate Afghanistan’s Kam Air?

admin •

Christian Science Monitor
, 6 February 2013 Following his article a day earlier, CSM’s Dan Murphy asks ‘key questions about the credibility of the Afghan attorney general’s office as it prepares to investigate accusations that Kam Air is involved in drug-smuggling’.

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Afghan Prosecutor Faces Criticism for Her Pursuit of ‘Moral Crimes’

admin •

New York Times, 28 December 2012 The only woman serving as chief prosecutor in any of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, in Herat, has come to personify the fine line between the progressive and the conservative. She has come under criticism — that her office is jailing women for so-called moral crimes at nearly the highest pace […]

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The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (3): Bagram and the Struggle for Sovereignty

Kate Clark •

Bagram Detention Centre has been officially transferred to Afghan control today, with the fundamental question of sovereignty – who has the right to arrest and detain Afghans on Afghan soil – still not resolved. The US insists it still has the right; the government says this is illegal. On Saturday (8 September 2012), President Karzai, […]

Political Landscape Read more

Legal Aid in Afghanistan: Contexts, Challenges and the Future

Sarah Han •

In this new briefing paper, lawyer and legal aid expert Sarah Han looks at the historical, legal and political context to the provision of legal aid and describes the efforts of the international community over the past five years to developing funding streams for the accused. The author commends the modest but significant improvements in […]

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A Year-Ender: The Dummies’ Guide to the Geneva Conventions

Susanne Schmeidl •

While the Taleban have been stepping up their assassination campaign in the past year, another worrying development occurred: There were several cases of international forces, Special Forces in particular, entering NGO-run clinics on pursuit of alleged insurgents, bullying medical staff for treating insurgents or using clinics temporarily as bases. This clearly violates the Geneva Conventions. […]

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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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Guest Blog: Right and Justice Party – possible trail-blazer for an Afghan centrism (AMENDED)

Ahmad Shuja •

We have already reported about the latest addition to the Afghan political party landscape, Hezb-e Haq wa Edalat (Right and Justice Party), which had been launched in Kabul on 3 November. This is an Afghan take on the new party, by our guest blogger Ahmad Shuja* who argues that it is stepping into new territory […]

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