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- U.S. Issues Country Reports On Human Rights Practices.
However, there is still lack of clarity about precisely what the fundamental principles are, and what should be done when they are violated, raising the question of whether it is really feasible to take such an approach when the Taliban is committed to principles diametrically opposed to those the aid community is attempting to promote. For example, the response to the July edict prohibiting Afghan women from working for international agencies revealed serious underlying disagreements about whether conditionality should be imposed on assistance, and if so, what kind.
Many were concerned that a response to the edict from the overseas headquarters of the various agencies involved would not take into account realities in the field, particularly the fact that edicts are not enforced uniformly throughout the country, and may not even affect programmes outside Kabul. Others, primarily from UN agencies, were troubled by the inadequacy of the response, and argued for a more confrontational approach. The gap between the two remains wide.
Armed Conflict
In the five years since the Taliban took power, there has been no evidence to suggest that engagement of that kind might lead to real change. International human rights advocacy on Afghanistan has been inconsistent and inadequate, with gender discrimination and the destruction of large religious artefacts the only issues on which the international community appears capable of sustained attention. The pervasive nature of all other human rights abuses largely escapes scrutiny altogether.
Even large-scale atrocities garner only short-lived headlines: Human rights researchers have documented more than 13 massacres of civilians and non-combatants in the past four years; most merit scarcely a mention in the international press. In addition, there are countless other cases that, taken together, paint a picture as grim as anywhere on earth: The abuses, together with the drought, have prompted thousands of new refugees to flee the country, or join the ranks of the internally displaced, struggling for survival.
Until recently, Western policy towards Afghanistan has been shaped almost entirely by US and Russian security interests.
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The humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan. The politicisation of humanitarian aid and its consequences for Afghans. Working in a political vacuum: In that attack, insurgents reportedly dressed as doctors shot dead patients in their beds. The May 31 truck bomb that killed at least 92 and wounded more than was the deadliest such attack ever in Kabul. Suicide attackers targeted Shia mosques in Kabul and Herat, killing more than According to UNAMA, the Taliban separated women and children from men, and shot dead at least nine ALP and other pro-government militia members, along with 27 male civilians; among them were four boys ages 13 to 17, and 13 men over They also killed one woman as she was trying to flee.
The number of internally displaced persons IDPs who fled from their homes due to the conflict surged as fighting intensified. More than , were displaced in the first 10 months of , bringing the nationwide total to at least 1. Attacks on civilians contributed to depression and other mental disabilities; Afghanistan has few community-based mental health services to provide treatment.
Registered cases represent only a fraction of the actual crimes of violence against women. A long-standing effort to reform family law, including divorce provisions, remained stalled. On March 4, the revised penal code was adopted by presidential decree. It incorporated all the provisions of the EVAW law, while strengthening the definition of rape.
However, because a number of conservative members of parliament have opposed the EVAW law, some activists campaigned to preserve the law in its stand-alone form decreed in The controversial reversal has left the status of the law in limbo. The Kabul Process peace talks in June included only two women among 47 government and international representatives. Deaths and injuries among women in the conflict increased sharply in , with deaths and injured in the first nine months of the year.
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Most occurred as a result of suicide bombings and aerial attacks. An April report by UNAMA documented the highest levels of torture of conflict-related detainees in police custody since The report singled out the Kandahar police for torturing 91 percent of detainees by forcibly pumping water into their stomachs, crushing their testicles with clamps, suffocating them to the point of losing consciousness, and applying electric current to their genitals. In a significant sign of progress in curbing torture, the government in March enacted anti-torture legislation, as part of the new penal code.
The law left out a compensation system for victims of torture by state security forces, but in August the cabinet approved an annex to provide for victim redress. It says impunity among corrupt officials was "a major problem. It lists torture, arbitrary arrests, and unlawful detentions as regular practices in Transdniester. Pakistan The report says extrajudicial and targeted killings, forced disappearances, and torture affected thousands of citizens in nearly all parts of Pakistan. Other human rights problems included poor prison conditions, arbitrary detention, and a lack of judicial independence in the lower courts.
It says harassment of journalists, some censorship, and self-censorship continued, along with religious freedom violations and discrimination against religious minorities -- including some violations sanctioned by law. The document says rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and discrimination against women remained serious problems.
Human Rights Reports OHCHR/UNAMA
It says abuses by government officials often went unpunished, fostering a culture of impunity, and criticizes the government, saying it made few attempts to combat widespread corruption. Russia The State Department criticizes Russia for introducing measures last year that limit political pluralism and curtail the activities of nongovernmental organizations. The report also ranks harassment of journalists as being a significant area of concern, as well as corruption in health care, education, and government. It also points to an inefficient judicial system as being the cause for lengthy and delayed trials, and long periods of pretrial detention.
Other problems reported during the year included physical mistreatment of detainees by police, harassment of human rights advocates, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender LGBT groups and individuals, as well as groups and individuals critical of the government. It says trafficking in persons remained a grave problem.
Human Rights Reports
Tajikistan The report's authors call Tajikistan "an authoritarian state" that is politically dominated by President Emomali Rahmon and his supporters. The report says the country's constitution provides for a multiparty political system but, in reality, the government obstructs real democracy in the country.
The document states that the most significant human rights problems are "the torture and abuse of detainees and other persons by security forces, restrictions on freedoms of expression and the free flow of information, including the repeated blockage of several independent news and social networking Web sites, the erosion of religious freedom; and violence and discrimination against women. The document says officials in the security services and elsewhere in the government acted with impunity, with no reported prosecutions of government officials for human rights abuses.
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov remained president following a February election that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights said involved limited choices for voters. The report says another major problem was the failure of the October parliamentary elections to meet international standards of fairness and transparency.