Author: Admin

(Reuters) – A teenaged bomber on Thursday targeted a Kabul auditorium packed with people watching a drama condemning suicide attacks and being staged at a French cultural center, killing a German man and wounding 16 people, officials and a witness said.

The suicide blast was the second to strike the Afghan capital in a day, after six Afghan soldiers perished when their bus was hit on the outskirts of the city as they rode into work.

The violence, part of a nationwide campaign by Islamist Taliban insurgents to strike at military and civilian targets, came less than three weeks before the year-end deadline for most foreign combat soldiers to withdraw from the country.

General Ayoub Salangi, head of the Interior Ministry while the cabinet is being finalised, said the suspected theater bomber appeared to have been about 17 years old and detonated his explosives at the venue during an early evening performance.

“I heard a deafening explosion … There were Afghans, foreigners, young girls and young boys watching the show,” Sher Ahmad, an Afghan rights activist who was at the performance, told Reuters.

He said the blast came during a performance of a new play called “Heartbeat: Silence After the Explosion”, a condemnation of suicide attacks.

“Pieces of flesh were plastered on the wall. There were children and women crying for help. Some were running out, some were just screaming.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the bomber targeted the event because it was staged “to insult Islamic values and spread propaganda about our jihad operations, especially on suicide attacks”.

Amid confusion immediately following the blast, one person could be heard saying “It’s all part of the show” in a video posted on YouTube purporting to be of the attack.

HEAVY SECURITY

Early police reports said the bomber attacked the French-run Lycée Esteqlal, one of Kabul’s oldest and most highly respected high schools, but Ahmad said the performance was at the French Cultural Centre located in the same compound.

Salangi said the person confirmed killed was a German man, but he could not immediately confirm his identity.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the attack was “particularly perfidious because it … was against exactly those people who are helping the country to build a better future.”

The French government said in a statement that “several” people were killed in the attack and “many” more injured, but none of the fatalities were French nationals.

The venue was heavily guarded during the event, according to Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi, who added that the bomber may have hidden explosives in his underwear to pass through security.

He said the bomber detonated the explosives at the top of the auditorium stairs, which may have prevented more casualties. The body of the bomber was shredded, but police were able to identify him as a teenager because his head was found intact.

Taliban militants have stepped up a campaign of violence this year to take advantage of uncertainty and weakness besetting Afghanistan’s security forces as they prepare to take over the war on the insurgency, now in its 13th year.

Earlier on Thursday, a suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel, the Defense Ministry said, ending a near two-week lull in attacks in the capital. As well as the six soldiers killed, 11 were wounded.

Five Afghan school children were also reported killed in a foreign forces air strike in northern Parwan province, Afghan officials said.

The International Security Assistance Force confirmed an air strike in the area, but said five insurgents were killed.

Civilian casualties caused by air strikes have been one of the most contentious issues of the war, although there are often conflicting claims.

Afghanistan: ‘Reprehensible’ attacks underscore urgent need to protect civilians

The recent wave of attacks on civilians by the Taliban and other armed groups in Afghanistan are reprehensible acts which underscore the new Afghan government’s urgent responsibility to protect the right to life, Amnesty International said today.

The most recent assault, a suicide bombing at Isteqlal High School Theatre in Kabul on Thursday evening, killed one and injured around a dozen civilians who were watching a play. It added to the rising toll of lives lost and hundreds of injuries in armed attacks in different parts of the country in recent weeks.

“Targeting civilians for attack is reprehensible and a clear violation of international humanitarian law (IHL), amounting to war crimes. It is crucial that those responsible are brought to justice,” said Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan Researcher at Amnesty International.

“One of the core responsibilities of the Afghan authorities is protecting civilians against such violent attacks. The onus is now on the new administration to bolster the security response and regain the trust of the Afghan people.”

The assaults have become more frequent as the majority of international troops stationed in Afghanistan wind down their operations and prepare to pull out later this month.

“The Taliban and other armed groups refer selectively to IHL whenever it suits them. But the targets of the recent string of attacks show a clear and ongoing disregard for fundamental IHL rules that are binding on these groups,” said Horia Mosadiq.

Amnesty International has been calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the situation in Afghanistan for possible war crimes committed by all parties to the conflict.

The organization is also calling on the United Nations to make sure that the protection of civilians and respect for IHL and international human rights law are high on the agenda in any possible future peace talks with the Taliban, among other human rights priorities.

By :Ahmad Zaki Khalil

Maria Ahmed came to Sweden in 2011 as an unaccompanied refugee child. She had to leave Afghanistan as her family’s life and safety was under threat in their home country. The family was shattered in the escape; Maria, her father, mother and two sisters. Only Maria boarded the plane to Sweden. Since autumn 2011, Maria has a permanent residence permit in Sweden.
During her three and more years here, her family has repeatedly applied for residency in Sweden to come into safety and to reunite the family.
Maria’s father has been in Sweden since 2013. But right now he is in custody in Flen, awaiting deportation. When he leaves, Maria – 12 years old – is left alone in Örebro with no family. No parents.
All Maria’s friends from her class at Sörbyängsskolan in Örebro, Sweden have signed the petition. They say: ”We are all classmates in class 6B and we’re protesting against the Swedish Migration Board’s decision. We believe that all children have a right to their parents. This also applies to unaccompanied refugee children. Stop the deportation of Maria’s father now!

Sweden has so many times been objected and condemned by the international asylum rights activists and organizations due to force deportations and usage of drugs while accomplishing the force deportations to Afghanistan.
The government of Sweden is deporting the Afghan asylum seekers by force to Afghanistan whereas they fail to do such deportations to the other countries, because those countries deny to accept the forced deportees unless it is done in volunteer.
The ministry of refugees and repatriation and the border police of Afghanistan can play a very significant role in stop of such force deportations.

By: Kawa gharji

It is nearly 12 years since the Taliban regime has fallen and a new government was established with the support of international communities accompanied by unprecedented support of people of Afghanistan. Over the past 100 years, no government in history of Afghanistan has experienced such level of widespread enthusiastic support. Before that, Afghanistan had the largest population of refugees.  By 2005, a great number of Afghans from neighbouring countries returned to their home country. They hoped for an Afghanistan free of conflict, unrest and war. They were filled with joy and enthusiasm to be part of positive changes that were about to take place in Afghanistan. However, after 2005 people fled the country again. Taliban had regained power and could be of great threats on highways. They burnt schools, exploded bridges and build obstacles on the ways of those whose only wish was to live normally in their homeland.

The young and teenaged Afghanistanis witnessed that the presence of warlords, human rights violators and drug traffickers and a weak and corrupt government in one hand and growing threats by Taliban on the other hand have left no hope for the future of their country. They had no option but to flee Afghanistan. That was the reason these disappointed young Afghanistanis, by absence of positive changes in their country and inability to encounter Taliban threats and warlords, decided to move toward the Western countries. Majority of them were aware of the potential dangers they might encounter until they reach a safe country. They knew that the refugees on boats were drowned on the way from Indonesia to Australia or from Turkey to Greece. They knew that their peers get frozen and die smuggled on lorries’ freezer on the way from France to England. They knew that at the event of a danger, the human traffickers rescue themselves first and use the refugees as human shields against bullets of border polices of Iran, Pakistan and Turkey. They knew they run the risk of getting exploited as sex slaves by traffickers. Despites all these risks, they decided to try their chance to reach a safe country in order to get education and have a future. It is because of the fact that the despair, fear and danger back in Afghanistan are much greater than the danger mentioned above.

When we speak of some one else’s sorrow, it is hard to grasp and understand the entity and depths of the pain unless we have experienced it ourselves. We are not aware of grave pain of toothache until we experienced it. It is the same for pain of exile, despair and devastation.  When a citizen of wealthy countries wishes to travel abroad, he/she just needs to pocket his/her passport and purchase a ticket. But for citizens of third world countries, particularly those from war-stricken countries such as Afghanistan, the humiliation and offence start right from the gates of foreign consulates.  It starts from obligation to talk and disclose very private and public matters to long hours of interviews and waiting times. There is absolutely no guarantee if one can obtain a visa after enduring such conditions. After that, the humiliation starts through the ambivalent behaviours of immigration officers at the airports, long waiting time for checking one’s passport from a ‘particular’ country, the suspicion and doubt of immigration officers on one’s real identity and finally irrelevant questioning which is only for annoying particular passengers.

The immigration officers of wealthy and semi-wealthy countries possess a list that contains names of 30 to 70 countries whose citizens should be treated in a particular way at the border. It is not because of the alphabetical order that Afghanistan is first on the list. It is because of the fear Afghanistan produces for its narcotic production, its terrorism and religious fundamentalism.  No one bothers to think that individuals related to these three threats are more likely to have suspicious documentations. As a result, it is only the normal citizens who suffer. These are only for those who travel legally. But those who travel illegally and are smuggled are actually risking their life.

The pain of exile and separation from the environment one has been raised, the language we learnt from our mothers, the food we are accustomed to, friends and most importantly family members, become more devastating when one has to flee at his/her very young age. Although at this age one has reached a level of semi-matureness physically, but at this phase, teenaged persons are in greater need of care by their father and mother and teachers. It is at this period that teenager’s character formation gets influenced by the surrounding environment and without essential supervision of the parents. A considerable number of refugees who flee Afghanistan are teenagers. The dangerous route, worries about one’s family, encounter with human traffickers, the violence experienced by smugglers as well as border police during detention time, all together create a great psychological shock for these teenagers.

The violence and abuse the majority of these young people has experienced or witnessed is much greater than the violence a normal person may have experienced entire of his lifetime. The culture they were brought up in has created moral restriction for them. Therefore, majority of them will not disclose the real reasons for their escape from Afghanistan.

The weak government of Afghanistan has freed itself from any responsibility on education and training of children and teenagers of Afghanistan, which is similar to its inability and reluctance to provide security and response to very basic human needs of its citizens, which are the normal responsibilities of any state. Majority of the development projects that are implemented in Afghanistan are for sake of providing a ‘good report’ only and not necessarily for brining a positive change in society. School textbooks in Afghanistan are filled with themes of particular ethnic, religious and lingual dominance, which influences children and teenagers’ mentality. Besides, warlords promote their culture of killing, gambling, drug trafficking, pedophilia (not to be mistaken with homosexuality) as model and a way of living for society and support generalization and destigmatization of such customs. During past two years, 406 cases of honour killing and sexual abuse and rape have been reported in Afghanistan. It is highly likely that real number of cases are 10 times higher as many families prefer not to report such cases. That is why those who were exposed to sexual abuses cannot talk about their problems and prefer to make up stories, which do not necessarily convince the immigration officers of host countries.

After spending some years, some of these refugee teenagers are deported to their country. Their reasons for seeking refuge have not convinced the immigration offices of host countries. For example there are cases of refugees who stayed in Norway from the age of 13 to 18. They have encountered grave dangers on the way to Norway. They have waited more than 5 years in limbo and are finally told they should go back to their country.  As their refugee status had not been recognized, they could not get education and could get only 300 hours of Norwegian language training. The time they had available was spent in loneliness and waiting and uncertainty. What prospect can they hope for once deported back to Afghanistan? To be in unfamiliar environment and ashamed of how one has been treated in the society where everybody knows about it, makes one unable to prove to be a positive element in society. His/her own country has not been able to protect him and address his/her basic needs at the time. His/her hope has been destroyed in Norway or any other European countries. Now the question is:  What option the human being communities has left for the future of these young people? Do they have any other option but to join terrorist, criminal, and drug dealer’s circles?

As a human being living in our shared planet, we should feel responsible. These young people have a bitter destiny and if we do not take care of them today, tomorrow our planet would not be a better place. Our tomorrow would be worse than our yesterdays and today’s.

SOURCE : HAZARA PEOPLE

The families of thousands of Afghan civilians killed by US/NATO forces in Afghanistan have been left without justice, Amnesty International said in a new report released today. Focusing primarily on air strikes and night raids carried out by US forces, including Special Operations Forces, Left in the Dark finds that even apparent war crimes have gone uninvestigated and unpunished.
“Thousands of Afghans have been killed or injured by US forces since the invasion, but the victims and their families have little chance of redress. The US military justice system almost always fails to hold its soldiers accountable for unlawful killings and other abuses,” said Richard Bennett, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Director.
“None of the cases that we looked into – involving more than 140 civilian deaths – were prosecuted by the US military. Evidence of possible war crimes and unlawful killings has seemingly been ignored.”
The report documents in detail the failures of accountability for US military operations in Afghanistan. It calls on the Afghan government to ensure that accountability for unlawful civilian killings is guaranteed in any future bilateral security agreements signed with NATO and the United States.
Amnesty International conducted detailed investigations of 10 incidents that took place between 2009 and 2013, in which civilians were killed by US military operations. At least 140 civilians were killed in the incidents that Amnesty International investigated, including pregnant women and at least 50 children. The organization interviewed some 125 witnesses, victims and family members, including many who had never given testimony to anyone before.
Two of the case studies — involving a Special Operations Forces raid on a house in Paktia province in 2010, and enforced disappearances, torture, and killings in Nerkh and Maidan Shahr districts, Wardak province, in November 2012 to February 2013 — involve abundant and compelling evidence of war crimes. No one has been criminally prosecuted for either of the incidents.
Qandi Agha, a former detainee held by US Special Forces in Nerkh in late 2012, spoke of the daily torture sessions he endured. “Four people beat me with cables. They tied my legs together and beat the soles of my feet with a wooden stick. They punched me in the face and kicked me. They hit my head on the floor.” He also said he was dunked in a barrel of water and given electrical shocks.
Agha said that both US and Afghan forces participated in the torture sessions. He also said that four of the eight prisoners held with him were killed while he was in US custody, including one person, Sayed Muhammed, whose killing he witnessed.
Formal criminal investigations into the killing of civilians in Afghanistan are extremely rare. Amnesty International is aware of only six cases since 2009 in which US military personnel have faced trials.
Under international humanitarian law (the laws of war), not every civilian death occurring in armed conflict implies a legal breach. Yet if civilians appear to have been killed deliberately or indiscriminately, or as part of a disproportionate attack, the incident requires a prompt, thorough and impartial inquiry. If that inquiry shows that the laws of war were violated, a prosecution should be initiated.
Of the scores of witnesses, victims and family members Amnesty International spoke to when researching this report, only two people said that they had been interviewed by US military investigators. In many of the cases covered in the report, US military or NATO spokespeople would announce that an investigation was being carried out, but would not release any further information about the progress of the investigation or its findings – leaving victims and family members in the dark.
“We urge the US military to immediately investigate all the cases documented in our report, and all other cases where civilians have been killed. The victims and their family members deserve justice,” said Richard Bennett.
Thousands of Afghans have been killed or injured by US forces since the invasion, but the victims and their families have little chance of redress. The US military justice system almost always fails to hold its soldiers accountable for unlawful killings and other abuses.
The main obstacle to justice for Afghan victims and their family members is the deeply flawed US military justice system.
Essentially a form of self-policing, the military justice system is “commander-driven” and, to a large extent, relies on soldiers’ own accounts of their actions in assessing the legality of a given operation. Lacking independent prosecutorial authorities, it expects soldiers and commanders to report potential human rights violations themselves. The conflict of interest is clear.
In the rare instances when a case actually reaches the prosecution stage, there are serious concerns about the lack of independence of US military courts. It is extremely rare that Afghans themselves are invited to testify in these cases.
“There is an urgent need to reform the US military justice system. The US should learn from other countries, many of which have made huge strides in recent years in civilianizing their military justice systems,” said Richard Bennett.
The report also documents the lack of transparency on investigations and prosecutions of unlawful killings of civilians in Afghanistan. The US military withholds overall data on accountability for civilian casualties, and rarely provides information on individual cases. The US government’s freedom of information system, meant to ensure transparency when government bodies fail to provide information, does not function effectively when civilian casualties are at issue.
Amnesty International also urges the Afghan government to immediately establish its own mechanism to investigate abuses by the Afghan National Security forces, who will assume full combat responsibility by the end of 2014.

Amnesty International Report

By ROD NORDLAND and New York Times 

HINDU KUSH RANGE, Afghanistan — They eloped from their village in the Bamian Valley on the first day of spring, but their month on the run has taken them back into winter as they fled higher into these rugged mountains in centralAfghanistan. They stayed in the homes of friends when they could, and they slept rough in caves when they could not.

Mohammad Ali, 21, and Zakia, 18, are fugitives, but they are together at last, married by a mullah after being kept apart by disapproving families and the taboo of their different ethnicities and sects. Her family has threatened to kill them, and now they face potential arrest, too, as the police are seeking them on what the couple say are concocted charges of bigamy and “attempted adultery.”

A week ago, they reached the spacious, mud-walled house of Haji and Zahra on a promontory overlooking a valley of freshly tilled wheat and potato fields along a fast river. On three sides, towering mountains still capped with snow shielded their hamlet of only four homes from view, and the nearest road was a steep walk away over a shaky log bridge — a perfect hide-out, and honeymoon picturesque.

Haji and Zahra are distant relatives and former neighbors of Mohammad Ali, and they welcomed the couple despite having eight children of their own, and little in the way of food beyond bread, rice and tea.

When Mohammad Ali and Zakia related how her family opposed the match because they are Sunni Tajiks and he is a Shia Hazara, and how they had tried for years to persuade her parents to allow them to be together, Zahra and Haji readily agreed that the couple could stay.

“I support what they did; they love each other,” Zahra said. “And for God’s sake, I decided we should help them.”

This was the eighth place the couple had slept since the night that Zakia fled the women’s shelter in Bamian, where she had spent months in custody under court order. At one point, they tried to flee across the Iranian border, but the people smugglers there wanted more money than they had, and the walk was, Mohammad Ali feared, more than Zakia could survive.

For a while, they took refuge in Ghazni Province, a dangerous area with a large Hazara population.

Finally they came to these high mountains, where they could at least find friends and distant relatives, although not all were welcoming. One night, turned away from shelter, the couple had to sleep on a mountainside; two nights, though they were near a large town, they feared to enter it and slept in a cave on the outskirts.

By the time they arrived at Haji and Zahra’s home, Mohammad Ali said, he was down to his last 1,000 afghanis — less than $20. There was no cellphone service unless he climbed to the top of a 14,000-foot peak nearby, and often that still did not work. He needed to make calls to arrange their next refuge.

Meantime, they described it as a week in heaven. “We could go out for walks in the mountains,” he said. “Everywhere else we had to hide inside.”

Green grass crept up the mountainside, providing forage for the donkeys and sheep, and reminding Mohammad Ali and Zakia of their shared childhood, when they tended their families’ animals together; their farms had been side by side.

“They seemed so happy together,” Zahra said. “For the whole week they were here, they were never fighting or angry with one another.”

“That stupid woman,” Zahra said. “Some people don’t know how to keep a secret.”

Haji spoke up: “They have to leave here today.”

There was neither argument nor resentment. Zakia quickly packed the two plastic bags in which they keep their clothes, along with a small knapsack. Zahra teared up. “She loves him and wanted to be with him is all,” she said. “But the problem is if it comes to a dispute between families, they might kill each other — and them, too.”

Anwar thought it might be the last time he saw his son and daughter-in-law, and he had something to say. The first time he had heard about Mohammad Ali’s plan to marry Zakia, Anwar had thrashed his son so badly that the young man had facial bruises for months. But since then, the father had come around.

“My daughter-in-law stood behind my son and was brave enough to say she loves my son, and it is an honor for us to stand behind her,” Anwar said. “She’s a part of my family now.” Both Anwar and Bismullah were red-eyed with emotion. (Like many Afghans, none of them use surnames; in Haji and Zahra’s case, surnames are being withheld for their protection.)

Mohammad Ali and Zakia were the only ones who did not look bereft, smiling and laughing easily with each other, even as they got ready to run again. “It’s worth it, because we love each other,” he said. “Of course we’re concerned about our safety, but our happiness is greater than our concern.”

“How can I be sad?” Zakia said, and gathered her veils over her face. “We’re together; I’m with my love.” Mohammad Ali had suggested she wear an all-covering blue burqa for disguise, but she refused proudly.

“I can’t put that thing on me,” she said.

They hoped to be hundreds of miles away by Saturday morning, but were not sure which way they would go. The road to the north went through Taliban country. To the west, bandit country, where they risked being robbed — or worse. The road to the south went over passes still blocked by snow.

There was no road east, but they could always walk.

Watch Video here : http://nyti.ms/1jp2bDS

Once again Lashkar-e-Janghvi (LeJ) terrorists managed to kill 28 Hazara pilgrims including women and children in Mastung district, some 50km Southwest of Quetta City, Pakistan and the provincial government once again failed to protect the lives of its citizens.
With respect to Hazara killings, the terrorists always get right information to murder Hazaras en masse outside of their vicinity. If they couldn’t find Hazaras outside of their surrounding areas, they easily manage to penetrate into Hazara neighbourhood by crossing heavily guarded security check posts to target Hazaras.

So far, over 100 Hazara Shias have brutally been murdered only in Mastung area but not a single terrorist involved in the killings of Hazaras has been captured. Only this year 33 Hazaras have so far been killed but not a single person was convicted. Last year, 281 Hazaras were massacred but not a single person was brought to book. Till to date, 1300 plus Hazaras have so far been killed and more than 3500 injured since 1999 but not a single person brought to justice.
LeJ and Jaish-e-Islam claim the killings of Hazaras publicly on the print and electronic media. In Balochistan, local media persons are fully aware of Hazaras killers but the government and the security agencies unfortunately don’t know who they are to get hold of them? They don’t know where do they live? What telephone number they use? And where do they make bombs?

Should we really believe what-so-ever the government and the security agencies say—in terms of the security failure? Do they really not have any information about the killers? Should we really believe that the terrorists are more capable than the writ of the government? No, of course not. It’s not as simple as it is portrayed. Everybody knows about the response of the security agencies to alleged Baloch nationalists. As we all know, thousands of Baloch nationals are reported missing and hundreds of them have already been reported allegedly killed brutally without being presented in the court.

Are the religious terrorists more powerful than the security forces? No, they are not. Is government scared of them? No, it’s not. Are they not aware of the religious terrorists’ hideouts? I’m sure, they know. Is there any issue with the capability of the government and law enforcement agencies in dealing with the religious terrorists? No, of course not.

Then what holds the government and law enforcement agencies back to take action against them? It is the “will”. Do they have “will” to go after the terrorists? No, they don’t have. If not, then the question arises why the “will” doesn’t allow the higher authorities to bring the religious terrorists to justice? How many Hazara dead bodies does the higher authority want? Over 1300 Hazaras have already been killed. What does the elite class want Hazaras to do in Quetta City? Or what message the big boss wants to convey to the international community through Hazara dead bodies?
These are the questions need to be analyzed well to get the right answer. Human Rights Watch report 2014 (HRW)says that the militant groups, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and some other banned outfits, are operating with “virtual impunity” in Pakistan as the country’s civilian and military institutions are either “unable” or “unwilling” to prevent terrorist attacks.
With regard to the ability of the government and military institutions, we have already discussed it and there’s no need to further discuss, however, the “unwilling” needs to be analyzed well to understand ongoing genocide of Hazaras in Pakistan.

If we take a look of past couple of days’ terrorist activities in Pakistan, we will easily come to know about the pressure on the federal government against Taliban. At least 20 soldiers were killed last Sunday by Taliban while in retaliation, Pakistani military aircraft bombed Taliban hideout in northern areas of Pakistan killing dozens.
Some conspiracy theorists believe that the government feels immense pressure from the military to take action against Taliban and Hazara killings actually means to develop pressure on the government by engaging the civil society to take action against Taliban. But the question arises, which Taliban? What Taliban I’m talking about—the good ones or the bad ones? Which ones the governments want to take action against? And which one is involved in the killing Hazaras? Too difficult by Pakistani government to separate the bad Taliban from the good ones.
Hazaras as usual have started sit-in protest with their dead bodies on Alamdar Road Quetta to demand action against the religious militant groups especially LeJ and Jaish-e-Islam, which will later on be supported by media, political parties and the civil society.
I strongly favour military action against the religious militant groups particularly LeJ and Jaish-e-Islam affiliated with Taliban and Al-Quaida but “why my community has been picked for the mass lobbying?”

And will the government ever launch military actions against the good religious militants groups especially LeJ, Jaish-e-Islam affiliated with pro-Pakistan Taliban? No, never. Why the government will show “unwilling”? Because they are “the national assets”. Like past, the government may carry out some kind of clichéd military actions against them but will soon be stopped when the situation calms down.

By Muhammad Younas

Read more: Outlook Afghanistan 

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — Maps refer to it as part of the Kabul-Behsud Highway. Motorists call it Death Road.

A 30-kilometer (18-mile) stretch of two paved lanes heading west from the town of Maidan Shahr in central Afghanistan has seen many beheadings, kidnappings and other Taliban attacks in recent years against members of the minority ethnic Hazara community. Nowadays, nearly all drivers avoid it.

The highway is the main route between the Afghan capital and Hazarajat, the informal name of the 45,000-square mile (116,550-square kilometer) region of highlands and rich pastures where Hazaras have traditionally settled. An alternate route out of Hazarajat involves a long detour to the north, and passes through areas where they have been targets of violence.

The threat of attack on Death Road is so great that Hazaras who’ve moved by the tens of thousands east to the capital in search of work are afraid to travel back to their home villages.

“If it were safe, I would go back,” said Sultan, 50, who fled to Kabul nine years ago after his village was torched by nomads allied with the Taliban. “Life is good in my village. There is fresh water, and the weather is good.”

The situation is a reminder of how fragile Afghanistan’s ethnic and sectarian balance remains less than a year before all foreign forces are to leave the country. The area has become a flashpoint for conflict between the Hazaras and Afghanistan’s majority ethnic group, the Pashtuns. The Taliban are predominantly Pashtun. The vast majority of Hazaras are also Shiite Muslims, reviled as heretics by Sunni Muslim extremists such as the Taliban.

For many years, Hazaras had taken the lowest-status jobs in Afghan cities, working unskilled, backbreaking jobs on construction sites. They have done far better, however, since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in 2001. Hazaras have enrolled in universities, taken jobs with international agencies and even won the Afghan version of American Idol, “Afghan Star,” the last two seasons.

Needless to say, Hazaras strongly support a continued presence of international forces after 2014, seeing it as a guarantee of the security, educational and economic gains they have made since Taliban times.

But even now, Hazaras cannot rely on international forces to protect them on Death Road.

Earlier this month, Hazara elders brought their complaints about security to the new chief of police in Maidan Shahr, the capital of Wardak province. They noted that because Hazarajat is so rural, they require construction crews from Kabul for any building projects.

“Construction of schools and clinics has stopped because it’s impossible to travel on this road,” said Mohammad Fahimi, the highest-ranking Hazara on the local provincial council. “The army has Humvees, weapons, bunkers. They can see the Taliban with their eyes but they’re afraid to come out of the bunker. They’re useless.”

Since a 2011 suicide bombing that killed over 70 Hazaras in Kabul, Afghanistan has not seen the sort of large-scale massacres that have claimed the lives of hundreds of Hazaras in neighboring Pakistan each year. But smaller-scale killings like those on the road remain a source of fear.

Last August, three Hazaras were kidnapped and killed in separate Taliban attacks along the road.

Seated in his office here in the provincial capital, Fahimi flips through a worn, handwritten diary to find details of the most recent killings.

“Mohamad Hadhi, 30 years old from Bamiyan, killed because he was Hazara. Baqar Fahimi, a university student from Ghor province, killed because he was Hazara. A driver named Ziauddin from Ghazni, killed because he was Hazara,” Fahimi reads aloud.

“The road is blocked, I can’t travel to talk to my constituents. The people elected me but I can’t to talk to them and find out what they need,” Fahimi said.

At the province’s brand new police headquarters, new Humvees are parked outside and about 50 recruits stand at attention in the dusty parade ground.

The police chief, Gen. Mohammad Fahim Qhiem, has promised to improve security on the road. Qhiem said the August killings remain unsolved, but he’s talked with village elders among the largely Pashtun population living along the road.

“Now it is OK, the road is safe,” Qhiem said.

Fahimi disagreed. He called his district, Behsud, “the worst place for Hazara safety in all of Afghanistan.” He estimates that over the past 10 years some 40 percent of the district’s population has fled.

The flight is fueled by the search for jobs and better education as much or more than for security. They’ve flooded into Kabul, 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of the Hazara’s biggest city, Bamiyan. Hazaras make up only perhaps 9 percent of Afghanistan’s population of 31 million, but some estimates say they now comprise half the population of the capital.

Hundreds of thousands of Hazaras have found their way to Dasht-e-Barchi, a sprawling Hazara district in western Kabul. It sprang virtually out of the desert 10 years ago, and now is home to an estimated 1.5 million Hazara.

One of them is Sultan, who like many here uses only one name. He says he hasn’t been able to return to his home for years because of attacks along the road. “Twenty-four people have been kidnapped and most killed by Taliban on this road, all Hazaras.”

Haji Ramazan Hussainzada, a Hazara community leader in Dasht-e-Barchi, says Hazaras are treated like “third-class citizens” in Kabul. He complains that parts of Kabul populated by other ethnic groups have more paved roads and access to schools, clinics and services.

The Hazaras say they value education very highly. “A Hazara father can go to bed with an empty stomach with no problem, as long as he can afford school for his children,” Sultan said, expressing a widely held view among Hazaras. He sends two of his sons to private school at nearly double the cost of a state school.

Seated in his sunlit shopfront along Dasht-e-Barchi’s traffic-choked main road, Sultan said he hopes his sons will one day become government ministers — but he’s worried that anti-Hazara discrimination could work against them.

The current government has no Hazara ministers. None of the 10 candidates in April’s presidential election is Hazara, though the leading two candidates have each chosen a Hazara running mate.

___

Associated Press writer Amir Shah in Kabul contributed to this story. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source : WP

The 8-years-old girl whose story you’ll read in coming lines did not make it to the 2nd night of her wedding nor did she make it to her 9th or 10th birthday.

Her name unknown, my source telephoned me last week at 9:30 pm to tell me her story. At the first I thought it’s just going to be a short conversation but later it was unveiled that the story is different.

The story came from a village in Khashrood district of Nimruz province in Afghanistan.

A medical doctor assigned in the main hospital in Zaranj city, the capital of the province, who wished to remain unnamed confirmed that he was “made aware” of the incident and that it was “too late to do anything for her” as well the “remote area didn’t allow them to do anything”.

The girl was one of the several daughters of a man in his late 30s. For an unknown reason he gave his daughter to the Mullah of their village for a big amount of money. It is also common in Afghanistan’s rural areas or 3rd level provinces/cities to marry young girls to old men, and trading their daughters for their debts or other items.

The mullah is in his late 50s and is the mosque guy of the village where this incident happened.

The mullah is already married and has many children too.
The two families hold a tribal meeting, agree on the price that the groom’s family pay to the bride’s family, and they set a date for wedding.

In rural areas like this here there are no engagements or any ceremonies beforehand like there are some in the metropolitan and urban areas.

The two families planned a wedding party, the wedding and Nekah (The religious process in which a woman is officially married to a man) took place and the 8-years-old bride became the 50-years-old Mullah’s 2nd wife.

The celebration party was over and the sun downed – the time to have sex (not make love) with the 8-years-old bride.

The girl was just 8 years old and everybody understands the fact that she knows nothing about sex or wedding or making love or virginity or sexual related topics; not even at a basic level for two reasons, one being that she’s just a child – not even a teenager and that in that part of the country, nobody knows anything about these things nor they are given trainings or education about a healthy sexual life.

The mullah takes off the bride’s clothes as well as his owns and with apparent so much happiness approaches her for sexual intercourse with the 8-years-old bride.
Because of the Mullah’s huge physique which gave him a big penis, he threw himself on her and started to penetrate the girl’s vagina.

After several tries that led him to failure to penetrate her vagina, the Mullah was frustrated.

He failed because the 8-years-old girl who was about to die was physically thin and had a very tight vagina opening.

Sourced from the Mullah’s animal behavior, he took out the sharp knife that he always carried with himself in his pocket and tore apart the girl’s vagina from the clitoris side upwards as well as tore it downwards towards her anus in order to make the vagina larger enough so he can enter his penis into her vagina.

Naturally, she started to bleed in a very bad amount, but the mullah was too annoyed for not being able to have sex with her, to care for what he did or her bleeding or her wounds that he gave her.

The girl had her scarf stuffed in her mouth, crying and trying to not raise her voice because others were there in the room adjacent to or outside.

It is a rule in some of the areas in Afghanistan that the groom brings out a piece of cloth that he cleaned his wife’s hymen blood with it as a proof that the girl was virgin.

Mullah entered his penis into the girl’s severely bleeding vagina and had sexual intercourse with her on a blood-covered bed, and then got up and cleaned himself with a cloth.

The girl, who now has lost everything, was bleeding and there was nobody to help her neither could the Mullah ask for help as it was a shame for him and the girl’s family (who were sitting over a cup of tea in the other room, would kill him).

Our 8-years-old bride bled and went into a traumatic shock because of both forced sex as well as severe bleeding. She had lost so much blood, this I can tell for certain.

She bled and bled as herself was in trauma shock until morning and early in the morning around 5 when the sun was about to rise, she passed away.

According to the Mullah, she was pale and her eyes were open when she died. The bed, as he described, was all red with her blood and she was lying in her blood only. No cloth beneath her was recognizable and everything was in dried blood because a whole night had passed on the blood.

She was pale because she had lost all her body’s blood. Her eyes were open as she was shivering when she died and her hands were tied in a praying position, saying her death time prayer.

The Mullah called in the same person and asked him to clean up the mess around and prepare a reason to tell the others for her death. Because the man was a close friend or family of the mullah, he did whatever he could, including every piece of cloth that was bloody.

They wrapped her in a piece of white clothes and called the others that she has passed away.

That morning her family mourned her death in the saddest manner without looking for proper explanation about her death, and then took her to wash her body as a religious ritual.

Because the Mullah had a great influence on the village, none of the women who washed the girl’s body dared to ask or seek the reason for the wounds around her vagina.

By 10 am or so they rallied the now-dead 8-years-old bride to the graveyard and buried her.

Her life ended.

The close friend of mullah, who knew everything, was very upset and shared the story with my source that then called me and told me the story.

Another doctor that I asked in Zaranj said that he wasn’t aware of the case, but he remembers that he used to treat the now-dead bride when she was 4 or 5 years old.

This doctor also asked me to not name him anywhere but only said that he was “deeply saddened that incidents like that still happen in Afghanistan”.

He called it one of the reasons of Afghanistan no going forward: People’s idiocy and uncivilized behaviors and traditions.

This story reached to me was told the exact way as it happened by the Mullah to a very close friend of him after the girl’s dead body was buried. According to the Mullah, he had a “bad conscience” about it.

Mustafa Kazemi
War Correspondent  Afghanistan

Red Flag

Afghan human rights, women’s rights and civil society organisations and networks publish today an open letter to Ms. Navy Pillay, UN Human Rights Commissioner and draw her attention to serious human rights violations and offer detailed recommendations to the Government of Afghanistan and the International Criminal Court.

Open letter to Ms Navi Pillay, UN Human Rights Commissioner

25 September 2013

Kabul, Afghanistan

Dear Ms Pillay,

Your effective presence in Kabul last week was a great opportunity for us, human rights and women’s rights organisations and networks. You offered your observations and concerns in your press conference on 17 September 2013. Not only do we agree with you, we are happy that you have endorsed our views.

The prospect of the withdrawal of international forces by the end of 2014, combined with the release of the Taleban leaders from prison and their increasing presence in important positions necessitate urgent measures to guarantee and perpetuate the significant institutional and democratic achievements since 2001, to ensure that Afghanistan shall not return to extensive and systematic violation of human rights and shall not become a safe haven for terrorism again. The hasty reconciliation with the Taleban without paying necessary attention to human rights, which the Afghanistan government and the international community are currently pursuing, shall be unsustainable and is doomed to fail. This approach will lead to eradication of truth and justice-seeking efforts, perpetuation of impunity and further human rights violations. Such reconciliation shall not establish the foundations for a lasting peace.

In the past few years, numerous nat

ional and international key actors have distinguished between peace-building and negotiations with the Taleban, women’s rights, human rights and transitional justice as separate and unrelated issues. They have established numerous unrelated institutions and claimed that the aforementioned processes are separable and have no impact on one another. Nevertheless, experience of post-conflict countries has proved that reconciliation without paying attention to truth and justice seeking shall lead only to rehabilitation of perpetrators of serious violations of human rights and ignoring rights of the victims.

We wish to draw your attention in particular to the following pressing issues:

1. The increase in the number of civilian casualties as a result of the growing terrorist operations and general insecurity means a systematic violation of human rights. The government of Afghanistan and its supporters must take effective measures to confront the insurgents and have a clear stand on non-negotiable red lines. Without any clear signs of the Taleban’s intention to respect rights of women, rights of victims and respect for justice, it is not possible to make peace with people who cause death and injury to the citizens of Afghanistan. The main actors are also sending worrying messages: Unconditional pardon for and release of Taleban prisoners in Afghanistan and Pakistan that has recently included key Taleban leaders (e.g. Mulla Abdul Ghani, No. 2 in the Taleban leadership hierarchy), can only reinforce the culture of impunity and pose a threat to a sustainable peace in Afghanistan.

In this regard, we are eagerly waiting for the independent recommendations of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan and its assistance to the government to enhance the rule of law. UN Human Rights Council is responsible for preventing the violation of human rights.

2. A list of about 5,000 vi

ctims of 

the 1978-1979 period was recently published by 8 Sobh, a national daily newspaper. The initiative was a consolation for thousands of relatives of the victims who, despite the elapse of several decades, did not know what had befallen their beloved. Thus, the need for uncovering the truth and implementing justice has been underlined once again.

The government of Afghanistan should:

Enshrine in its immediate agenda the revival and realisation of the Action Plan for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation, which was included among its tasks with its own approval in several national and international documents.

3. Violence against women, failure of the Parliament to approve the Law for Elimination of Violence against Women (which is in force by a Presidential Decree), the widespread illiteracy of 90% of women and their lack of access to education and health illustrate the acute conditions of women in Afghanistan.

The government of 

Afghanistan should:

– Annul all discriminatory laws against women, in particular the Marriage Law, the discriminatory provisions of the Penal Law and the Property Law, the discriminatory traditional laws and the Law of Personal Status of the Shiite;

– Take measures to put an end resort to mobile informal courts and guarantee women’s full and effective access to the formal justice system;

– Enhance the implementation of the Law for Elimination of Violence against Women, in coordination with the Prosecutor-General’s Office throughout the country;

– Continue to improve wo

men’s access to social rights, e.g. health and education, and combat illiteracy among women nationwide;

– Always extensively consult and cooperate with women, civil society organisations and the AIHRC to draft government reports to the UN committees, in particular the Committee for Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to implement their concluding observations and the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women.

4. Despite considerable mobilisation of women in elections, the new Election Law has reduced women’s seats in provincial councils from 25% to 20%, even though women had operated very successfully in those councils and offered valuable service to the

 people. The Law has also eliminated women’s quota in the District Councils. The serial and systematic kidnapping and killings of women who are active in social and political fields, lack of executive power of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, which the government and its partners have given the greatest responsibility, the failure to achieve the targets of the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan (NAPWA) and Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) – which have been formulated with a spirit of equality for women and total elimination of sexual discrimination – have sounded the alarm for women’s rights and achievements.

The government of Afghanistan should:

– Ensure women’s equal and effect

ive (and not just symbolic) participation in all stages of the peace talks, based on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security;

– Guarantee that the minimum 25% quota of seats in Parliament allocated to women will not be modified in electoral law, and ensure that the same quota is returned to women in Provincial Council elections;

– Appoint women to key positions in the government, the judiciary and other decision making bodies; and

– Prosecute perpetrators and instigators of the killings and kidnapping of women.

5.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission should lead all peace-building processes and guarantee realisation of human rights in the country. However, it has been marginalised and its access to international mechanisms has been restricted.

The government of Afghanistan should:

– Appoint professionally and morally competent and qualified persons to strengthen the AIHRC and guarantee its independence;

– Ensure the AI

HRC’s participation in all peace and reconciliation-related processes; and

– Publish immediately the full text of AIHRC’s ‘Conflict Mapping Report’ on violations of human rights in Afghanistan during the war.

6. The justice system’s mechanisms have displayed their inability and unwillingness to open serious investigations and prosecute perpetrators of international crimes.

The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor should:

– Publish regularly its detailed reports on its preliminary analysis of Afghanistan and its activities concerning the principle of complementarity of the court;

– Open investigations into the crimes committed in Afghanistan since 2003 and respond to victims’ need for redress.

We thank you, Ms. Navi Pillay, for your consideration and look forward to the pursuit of these indicators for an efficient and human rights oriented development of Afghanistan, we wish you success in the important task you have.

Sincerely yours,

Armanshahr Foundation/OPENASIA, Transitional Justice Coordination Group, Cooperation Center for Afghanistan, 8 Sobh Daily, Afghanistan Watch, Afghanistan Cooperation for Peace and Development, Simorgh Peace Prize, Nai Supporting Afghanistan Open Media, National Movement of Afghanistan’s Youth Human Rights and Democracy Organization, Civil Society & Human Rights Organization, Roya Film House, Herat Civil Society Institutions Network, 1st International Women’s Film Festival-Herat, Afghanistan Pen, Tahminah Organization, Afghan Civil Society Forum Organization, Subhan Foundation, Negah-e Zan Magazine, Development and Support of Afghan Women and Children Organization, Kandahar Women’s network, Empowerment Center for Women, All Afghan Women Union, Merman Women’s Radio, Khadija Kubra Women Association for Culture, Nawandish Social and Cultural Foundation, Fadai Heravi Publishing House, Support to Afghanistan Civil Society Organization, Supported by the International Federation for Human Right (FIDH).

Contacts:

Afghanistan (Dari) – Tel: +93 700427244 – Email :armanshahrfoundation.openasia@gmail.com

Media: Arthur Manet (French, English) – Tel: +33 6 72 28 42 94 – Email : press@fidh.org

Audrey Couprie (French, English) – Tel: +33 6 48 05 91 57 – Email : press@fidh.org

CC:

– His Excellency President Hamed Karzai

– Ms. Sima Samar, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

– Ms. Hossn Banu Ghazanfar, Minister of Women’s Affairs

– Mr. Abdul Rahoof Ibrahimi, Speaker of Parliament

– Mr. Salahuddin Rabbani, High Council of Peace

– Ms. Fatou Bensouda, Office of Prosecutor, International Criminal Court

– Mr. Ján Kubiš , Special Representative for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)

– Ms. Georgette Gagnon, Director of UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit

Facts and realities from the world history are demonstrating that universities and academic spectrum have always functioned as the cornerstone for nurturing elites, the production and reproduction of wisdom, social consciousness, cultural awareness and political awareness, having paved the way for and strengthening human development and civilization.

After the brutal 9/11 incident and the subsequent global alterations introduced as the result of the generous supports and technical assistance of International Community, along with comprehensive efforts of Afghan politicians, it was anticipated that Afghanistan would experience more constructive and deeper changes at higher education stage so that, on one hand; it could produce technical and professional cadres for filling the social, cultural and educational gaps, and on the other hand; the higher education graduates, experts and academic professionals could play vital roles at establishing long term communication and understanding among citizens belonging to different ethnic, regional and religious groups.

Unfortunately, recent examples of some regretful contingencies occurred throughout the academic institutions of Afghanistan, it has depicted an unpleasant fact that most academic institutions suffer lack of competent cadres, outdate and non-standardized teaching curriculum, lack of required technologies and equipment that have tremendously affected negatively overall situation of the academics. In addition, there are numerous evidences of inhuman approaches of some lectures and management personnel of the universities towards students, particularly against those who feel unsatisfied about the quality of teaching and learning process. Anyone who have spent his/her some days as a student of the public universities, have many unsaid stories of prejudice, discrimination and unjust treatments of the teachers and other university personnel. But most of the students hardly can reveal such hidden stories due to threats hey receive again and again.

Following very few examples of such strikes and protests, on-going hunger strike that started six days ago in Kabul has been incredibly shocking and agonizing. More than 200 students from the Social Science Faculty of Kabul University turned to go on indefinite hunger strike to rise up their voices against injustice and discrimination; and since then, they have been persisting Ministry of Higher Education to bring essential changes at management and curriculum levels. But unfortunately, yet, they have not received any practical and logical response. As a result, right now the health conditions of the strikers are deteriorating second after second and many of them have been sent to hospitals for survival.

The signatories of this resolution statement, who are comprised of civil society and human rights activists while strongly supporting the legal demands of the strikers, would like to bring up the following points as their unchangeable propositions to Ministry of Higher Education. However, they are ready to continue their struggle until the last possible moments:
1. Promptly satisfying responses to the legal demands, propositions of the strikers and embarking on immediate decisions to end the strike peacefully;
2. Establish a transparent and just system to guarantee meritocracy, professionalism and competitive based recruitment and employment;
3. Implement well-planned programs aiming at standardization, up-to-date, review and develop the education curriculum and textbooks;
4. Follow and inspect particular examples of discriminated and harmful treatments of such specific faculty personnel, and enforce appropriate mechanism for disciplining, punishment and their expulsion from the academic institutions.
5. Provide practical scales to ensure freedom of speech, open discussion academically healthy and constructive interaction within the university departments and academic environments.
With Best Regards,
The Afghanistan Civil Society and Human rights Activists.
25 May, 2013

Your ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years, but you are a minority. In fact, you are a minority two times over, because the religion you practice is different from the one most people practice, and the way you look is different from the way most people look.

In the 1890’s, Emir Abdur Rahman comes along. He is a king who reserves special scorn for your people, and in order to control territory and to scare troublesome groups into obedience, he makes an example out of yours. Your people are easy to target — the different-believers, the different-lookers.

The moment you leave the country, you are illegal. So you are sitting in a parking lot watching your people die, because even though you haven’t chosen sides in this civil war, you’ve been assigned one.

Many of you escape, but millions of you don’t. So many of your people are killed that you believe fewer than half survived. Even statues that look like you are attacked.

For the next century, those of you who survive are relegated to the bottom rungs of society. The king has made it difficult for your people to gain admission to university and places a ceiling on the rank you can achieve in the military. Later, a group that calls itself The Students, or the Taliban, will take over the country and declare it every Afghan’s duty to kill your people.

Imagine, though, that you are one of the lucky ones, and you escape before the king or The Students can get you. You go to a country next door.

Country #2

Iran is a country where, mercifully, everyone is the same religion as you — Shia. You think you will be welcomed there. There, you are still an ethnic minority, but you are no longer a religious one.

Then there is a revolution, and then a war, and then the ending of a war. People emerge from the tumult and remember that their economy is not very good. There are sanctions. And your people, the different-lookers, are the target of most of the rage. There are not enough jobs for everyone, so why should your people get to take them?

You are not the only immigrants, but you are immigrants people can see are immigrants just by looking. In your country of refuge, you are now an enemy of the people.

You must leave again.

Country #3

Some of you go to Iraq. There, Shias are not in power, but at least there are many of them. Plus, there are important Shia sites in Iraq, so while you feel physically alien, you can make-believe you are spiritually home. Iraq has a powerful and fearsome dictator, but no matter; you are safe.

Until you are no longer safe. The dictator embarks on a foolish war and becomes an enemy of peace, a cancer in the region. Iraq is a pariah state and its dictator a paranoid man who fears that those who aren’t like him will soon betray him. He hates Iran, and knows your people were there. And even though you were driven from Iran, you are spying for them, the dictator thinks.

You must leave again.

Country #4

In Syria the situation is reversed — there are far more Sunnis than Shias, but the Alawites, a kind of Shia, are in power.

You find homes near a shrine, and you settle again. Finally you are safe and free, even though you are four countries from your own and have no papers so you cannot leave.

Then a popular uprising envelops the region and the president of this new land watches heads of state fall all around him. He resolves to stay. He cracks down on those opposing him; he is merciless and decisive. He is killing militants and people suspected of being militants. Soon he is killing so many civilians it is hard to believe he is not killing civilians on purpose.

It is a terrible thing you are seeing, but that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is that the president doing all this killing belongs to your religion. The people dying are the Sunnis.

The Sunnis are angry, traumatized, and full of fire. They have seen the bodies of their loved ones broke open, and when they look up from the carnage, they see you, the different-lookers. The people who believe like he believes, the man behind the slaughter.

The victims think: You like this evil man. His family let you live in this country, so surely, you are helping him. You are providing him information. Or maybe you’re not now, but soon you will. And so some of the victims arrive at your doorstep to drive you from your home.

There are about 1,000 of you left. You’ve now been kicked out of your houses, you live in a parking lot next to a shrine, and you are watching mortar rounds fall closer and closer to your family.

And then you’re watching mortar rounds hit your family. You are watching your people die in a fourth country. You want to flee, but you can’t. You don’t have papers, remember? The moment you leave the country, you are illegal.

So you are sitting in a parking lot watching your people die, because even though you haven’t chosen sides in this civil war, you’ve been assigned one.

You are Hazara. Your name actually means “thousand,” and you are reliving your own founding myth. You look Asian because your ancestors in Afghanistan were Buddhist pilgrims, or because you descended from Genghis Khan, or both — this is a contested historical point.

You are Muslim, but you are Shia. What this means is that in Afghanistan, you believed in the right God, but the wrong way. In Iran you believed the right way, but looked wrong. In Iraq, and now in Syria, you were wrong in both ways.

You have never been too comfortable in the places you live because you’ve always looked different. And you have always been under suspicion because you believe differently. Those of you with features mild enough to pass as other ethnicities often try to.

But now you are trapped. You’ve moved west and west and now if you moved any further west you’d be in the Mediterranean Sea. You have survived a massacre in Afghanistan, a revolution in Iran, a tyrant in Iraq, and now, a civil war in Syria. You have always been the first to suffer, but you’ve always been able to go a little further west. Now you can’t.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The number of Afghan women and girls jailed for “moral crimes” has risen dramatically in the past 18 months, raising concerns that gains in women’s rights might be reversed with the withdrawal of most international troops next year, a rights group said Tuesday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said 600 females are now detained under charges listed as moral crimes, a catch-all category that covers running away from home and sex outside of marriage. The number of females behind bars has jumped by 50 percent since late 2012, it said.

Many women who report rapes to police find themselves arrested for adultery, and many who flee violent abuse or forced marriages are jailed for running away from home, though that is not a crime under Afghan’s criminal code, said Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch’s deputy director for Asia.

“The majority of women and girls imprisoned for `moral crimes’ are actually victims themselves,” Kine said.

Of the 600 females now detained for moral crimes, about 110 are girls under 18, almost all of them charged with running away from home, said HRW’s Afghanistan researcher, Heather Barr. Many police and prosecutors cite provisions of Shariah Islamic law to order the detentions based on “intent to commit adultery.”

The number of women and girls jailed for alleged loose morals is the highest since the ouster of the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban regime in a U.S.-backed invasion in 2001, Barr said. The Taliban were known for harsh treatment of women under their strict interpretation of Islamic law during their five-year reign, ordering beatings for women failing to wear the full-body burqa garment in public and banning them from leaving their homes without a male relative.

Activists fear that hard-won women’s rights, one of the most visible improvements since the invasion, are in danger of eroding in Afghanistan, where many people remain deeply conservative and opposed to rights measures they see as imposition of Western values.

Tuesday’s report came three days after conservative parliamentarians fiercely opposed ratifying a presidential decree on protection of violence against women, rejecting provisions banning child marriage, domestic violence and jailing of rape victims as un-Islamic. Some activists worry the parliament may try to amend or even repeal the decree, which remains in force for now.

Barr said the sharp increase in prosecutions for moral crimes could be related to religious conservatives feeling more confident with the departure of international troops. Most foreign forces will leave by the end of 2014.

Photo by R.A

Text Surce :huffington post

An Afghan woman imprisoned for adultery after a relative raped her has been freed after President Hamid Karzai intervened on her behalf.

The woman, identified only as Gulnaz for her own protection, had been sentenced to prison for 12 years after she reported that her cousin’s husband had raped her two years ago. Wednesday, she was free, at a women’s shelter in Kabul, with her daughter.

Her plight gained international attention when the European Union blocked the broadcast of a documentary about her ordeal, saying it would further jeopardize her safety.

Afghan Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb and a judiciary committee both proposed a pardon. Karzai then ordered authorities to decree Gulnaz’s release.

After the attack two years ago, Gulnaz hid what happened as long as she could. She was afraid of reprisals. But soon she began vomiting in the mornings and showing signs of pregnancy. It was her attacker’s child.

Raped Afghan woman gets reduced sentence In Afghanistan, this brought her not sympathy, but prosecution. She was found guilty by the courts of sex outside of marriage — adultery — and sentenced to 12 years in jail. She was only 19.

Interview with Gulnaz

In conservative Afghan society, Gulnaz faces considerable pressure to marry her attacker, thereby soothing the rift between the two families, restoring her honor and also legitimizing her daughter.

She was willing to do so in order to end her incarceration, she told CNN last month from Kabul’s Badam Bagh jail, though she does not want that option. She would like to marry an educated man, according to U.S. attorney Kimberly Motley in Kabul.

How Gulnaz will be able to re-assimilate into the life she once had remains a confusing question.

Her choices are stark. Women in her situation are often killed for the shame their ordeal has brought the community. She could still be at risk, some say, from her attacker’s family.

CNN

Statement attributable to the Secretary-General
concerning the attack against the UNAMA compound in Mazar-i-Sharif

1 April 2011 – I condemn in the strongest terms the outrageous and cowardly attack against the United Nations office in Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan. Our reports are still preliminary, but it appears that three United Nations international staff as well as four international security officers were killed in the attack. My Special Representative, Staffan de Mistura, has travelled to Mazar-i-Sharif and is personally overseeing the investigation.

Those who lost their lives in today’s attack were dedicated to the cause of peace in Afghanistan and to a better life for all Afghans. These brave men and women were working in the best tradition of the United Nations and gave their lives in the service of humanity.

I express my sincere condolences to the families and colleagues of those who were lost and call on the Afghan Government to thoroughly investigate this incident and bring its perpetrators to justice.

Nairobi/New York; 1 April 2011

Amnesty International has urged NATO leaders to protect human rights and ensure security for the people of Afghanistan as they prepare for the 2010 NATO Lisbon Summit.

The organization has sent letters to NATO leaders urging them to improve accountability for Afghan and international military forces, tackle arbitrary detention and torture and ensure human rights guarantees during any talks with the Taleban.

“As NATO begins to discuss its withdrawal from Afghanistan, it’s crucial to explain to the Afghan people exactly how the international community will follow through on its promise to protect and promote their human rights,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Programme Director.

“These promises seem about to be discarded without fanfare, but the need for improving the human rights situation in Afghanistan is even more urgent now.”

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that the 2010 Summit will mark a fundamentally new phase in NATO’s operation in Afghanistan, as Allies will launch the process by which the Afghan government will take the lead for security throughout the country.

In letters to NATO leaders, Amnesty International has identified three concrete steps to improve governance, uphold the rule of law and human rights that would enhance security and stability for the Afghan people.

1. Improve the accountability of international and Afghan military and security forces
The Taleban and other insurgent groups are responsible for the vast majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, but that does not excuse the continuing lack of accountability and compensation for casualties caused by NATO and Afghan forces.

The current lack of accountability fuels and fosters resentment among Afghans that international forces are above the law and unaccountable for their actions, particularly when it comes to civilian casualties.

NATO continues to lack a coherent, credible mechanism for investigating civilian casualties. Non-binding guidelines adopted in June 2010 by NATO regarding civilian compensation need to be implemented as part of the existing rules of engagement.

2. Ensure no arbitrary detention or transfers to torture
The United States continues to arrest and detain hundreds of Afghans without proper judicial process. NATO countries continue to hand over detainees to the Afghan intelligence agency, National Directorate for Security (NDS), which has record of perpetrating human rights violations, with impunity.

The increase in the scope of fighting in Afghanistan as a result of the troop surge earlier this year is likely to lead to a rise in the number of people detained. The US government should immediately grant all detainees held by US, whether in Bagram, Guantánamo Bay or any other US detention facility, access to legal counsel, relatives, doctors, and to consular representatives, without delay and regularly thereafter.

The Afghan government and its international partners should seek mechanisms to ensure fair trials for those in detention, including the option of mixed tribunals to try those apprehended in counter-insurgency operations by either Afghan or international forces.

3. Guarantee human rights protections during reconciliation talks with the Taleban
Amnesty International calls on delegates to the NATO Summit to ensure that human rights, including women’s rights, are not traded away or compromised during any political process, including reconciliation talks with the Taleban in Afghanistan and that, in line with the demands of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, Afghan women are meaningfully represented in the planning stages and during the reconciliation talks.

“The implementation of these three steps would help signal that the interests of the Afghan people are the focus of the NATO governments and the international community,” said Sam Zarifi.

The NATO Summit will convene in Lisbon on 18-19 November 2010. The Summit provides members with the opportunity to evaluate and shape the strategic direction for NATO activities, launch major new initiatives and forge partnerships with non-NATO countries. There have only been 24 Summits since NATO was established in 1949.