Human Lives Human Rights: In the previous two parts, we examined the human rights situation regarding the rights of ethnic and religious minorities and women’s rights in Afghanistan, and in this part, we will examine the role of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
After the attack of the coalition forces that led to the fall of the first Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001, the legal system of this country was completely transformed and a new constitution was drafted, and one of the benefits of this new legal system was the establishment of a body called Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
According to the Bonn Agreement held in 2001, a body was formed in the administrative structure of the Afghan government called Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), which is actually a national organization that is responsible for investigating human rights in Afghanistan, and this organization has to investigate the cases of human rights violations, including abuse of power against people, torture, war crimes, and cases related to the women’s rights.
The organization has reported various cases of human rights violations by American soldiers against Afghan civilians, especially in the Parwan Detention Facility, where innocent civilians were tortured, humiliated and subjected to inhumane treatment. The United States has been severely criticized for its lenient punishment for the soldiers responsible for this treatment.
AIHRC also investigated other violations including kidnapping, rape, theft and extortion and provided the report to the responsible organizations.
Among the other interesting measures of this almost non-governmental organization, we can refer to the agreement to prohibit torture by the security forces and support the Afghan people against the actions of the Taliban followers, especially during the elections.
In addition to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), the Ministry of Justice, is also responsible to review human rights in Afghanistan. The Ministry of Justice of Afghanistan initially undertook the responsibility of improving the role of the government in order to implement its human rights commitments in accordance with the Afghan Constitution.
The Department of Human Rights Protection of the Ministry of Justice, acts as an intergovernmental mechanism whose mission is to review, monitor and evaluation of the executive branch in relation to the application of human rights and report it in accordance with the human rights duties of the monitoring bodies.
With the Taliban, taking the control over Afghanistan and the occupation of the government by this group, since the Taliban saw this body as an obstacle to their anti-human actions, they immediately dissolved this commission.
According to the reports, after the Taliban came to power, this organization announced that the Taliban had occupied the buildings and all the offices of the commission, and were using the assets of the commission, such as the vehicles and computers of this organization, and they ultimately failed to perform their duties.
However, the members of this organization asked the Taliban to respect the important mission of this organization and even the Security Council expressed serious concern about the dissolution of this organization in a statement.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, in a correct action, used all its power to prevent the dissolution of this organization by the Taliban, but in reality, the pressures that the usurping Taliban government puts on this organization, we cannot expect much from this body in fulfilling its responsibilities in presence of the Taliban government.
