• Afghanistan: Little Progress on Rights
    Press release
    Jan 23, 2012
    The dire human rights situation in Afghanistan showed few signs of progress in the past year, raising serious concerns about the future.
  • Afghanistan: Appoint Experts to Human Rights Commission
    Press release
    Jan 18, 2012

    President Hamid Karzai should appoint independent and experienced human rights experts to fill vacancies on the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

  • Afghanistan: Decree Increases Detainees’ Risk of Torture
    Press release
    Jan 10, 2012
    President Hamid Karzai should revoke a new decree that puts detainees in Afghan-run prisons at heightened risk of torture and ill-treatment.
  • Last Chance to Get it Right in Afghanistan
    Commentary
    Dec 29, 2011
    Ten years ago last week, Hamid Karzai was sworn in as the leader of Afghanistan. “In this critical time, when our motherland is watching our actions, let us come together and be brothers and sisters,” he said, taking office as head of the interim government after the Taliban’s defeat. “Let us be good to each other and be compassionate and share our grief. Let us forget the sad past.” His words captured the hope of many Afghans that their country was emerging from conflict to a new era of reconstruction, democracy, and respect for human rights.
  • Afghanistan: Don’t Expand Afghan Local Police
    Press release
    Dec 15, 2011

    President Barack Obama should halt plans by the US military to expand the Afghan Local Police program until significant reforms are made in training, supervision, and accountability.

  • Afghanistan: A Decade of Missed Opportunities
    Press release
    Dec 4, 2011
    The Afghan government and its allies abroad have failed to make human rights a top priority in the decade since the fall of the Taliban government, leaving Afghans to face an uncertain future.
  • Afghanistan: Key Conference Sidelining Women
    Press release
    Oct 30, 2011
    Afghan women activists are at risk of being sidelined at a key international conference on Afghanistan’s future scheduled for December 5, 2011, in Germany.
  • Human rights and the Afghan security transition
    Commentary
    Sep 26, 2011

    As the deadline approaches for the transition to Afghan control of security in 2014, the Afghan government and its international backers have embraced a high-risk strategy of funding and arming militias in the country's north (a process that was started by the Afghan intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), in 2009), as well as a village-level force called the "Afghan Local Police" (ALP). But they have done so without providing the necessary oversight mechanisms, thereby creating instability in the very communities these forces are supposed to protect.

  • Afghanistan Ratifies Global Ban on Cluster Bombs
    Press release
    Sep 13, 2011

    Afghanistan should be commended for its ratification of the international convention banning cluster bombs in defiance of pressure from the United States.

  • Afghanistan: Rein in Abusive Militias and Afghan Local Police
    Press release
    Sep 12, 2011
    Militias and some units of the new US-backed Afghan Local Police are committing serious human rights abuses, but the government is not providing proper oversight or holding them accountable.