Human rights offices open in Mazar-e Sharif and Bamian

Following the opening of its first sub-office in the western city of Herat, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) opened two more sub-offices this week, in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif and the central province of Bamian, both of which have experienced serious human rights violations such as mass killings, torture and intimidation of civilians over the last decade.

The two areas changed hands many times during past fighting between groups, including the Taliban and the former Northern Alliance (NA), and abuses of ethnic minorities were widely reported there. Today, both Bamian and Mazar-e Sharif remain under the control of warlords, and human rights violations, mostly committed by warring militias, are continuing, say observers.

"Unfortunately human rights violation is still a serious issue in the north, as it is in most of the provinces of the country," Sima Samar, the head of the AIHRC and former women's affairs minister, told IRIN in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of Balkh Province.

According to its mandate, the AIHRC will raise the level of human rights awareness among the public, work to uphold women's and children's rights, and investigate past violations.
"However, [even though] the commission doesn't have any police force or judicial court, it doesn't mean we are weak," Samar said, stressing that it had the right to intervene in any government body and study violation cases.

According to Asma Jahangir, a United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, who visited different Afghan cities late last year, there are reports of widespread killings by the Taliban and NA in the north of the country. She described how civilians continued to be killed, jailed, tortured and intimidated by warlords. After her visit, she recommended that the UN establish a commission to investigate human rights abuses perpetrated in Afghanistan over the past 23 years.

For Samar, past human rights abuses remain a very sensitive political issue, as some of those accused of being serious violators of human rights are either part of the new transitional government or retain power elsewhere. "[While] the gun rules in the country, it will be hard and challenging to pursue serious human rights violations," she said.

But Gen Ata Mohammad, a powerful warlord in Balkh Province, said the outcry over violations of human rights in the north had been prompted by the fact that there had been no reliable and independent monitor in the province. "We have been saying ever since the collapse of the Taliban terrorist regime that any advocate or activist of human rights can come and monitor the human rights situation in Mazar," he told IRIN, calling on AIHRC to undertake neutral and comprehensive measures for improving human rights in the north.

He announced the northern authorities' full support for AIHRC, but stressed that Islamic values had top priority and could not be ignored in any cases.

Meanwhile, however, the UN in Mazar-e Sharif says it is continuing to receive reports of clear violations of human rights being perpetrated in all the northern provinces. "We do see, and continue to see, human rights abuses in the north," Mechele Lipner, an area coordinator of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN in Mazar-e Sharif, noting that violations were being carried out against all sections of the population, often by local commanders.

In early July 2002, a programme of returning internally displaced people to parts of the country was suspended by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees because of volatile security conditions. This followed reports of mounting violence and a deteriorating human rights situation in parts of northern and central Afghanistan. According to Lipner, UNAMA has since undertaken a number of initiatives to raise the level of accountability and promote security and safety for all citizens.

"The return commission, which is to ensure the safety and security of the returnees, is one of those initiatives," she said, noting that the move had been fully supported by the authorities in the north. She noted that, compared to other provinces, there was now a greater degree of freedom of expression in the north, and respect for women's rights was also improving there.