Afghanistan was supposed to hold its next parliamentary elections this May, but those were postponed until the fall for security, logistical and financial reasons.
The United Nations’ highest human rights official in Afghanistan has publicly called on the Afghan government to repeal a recently publicized law that grants amnesty from prosecution to leaders of all warring factions during two more than two decades of conflict before 2001.
Representatives from Hezb-i-Islami, the smallest of Afghanistan’s three major insurgent groups, met with the Afghan president and the United Nations Assistance Mission this week to discuss a list of 15 conditions demanded in exchange for the group laying down its arms. Part 2 of the series. (Part 1.)
Representatives from Hezb-i-Islami, the smallest of Afghanistan’s three major insurgent groups, met with the Afghan president and the United Nations Assistance Mission this week to discuss a list of 15 conditions demanded in exchange for the group laying down its arms. Part 1 of a 2 part series about why these developments should be treated with extreme caution.
(Kabul, Afghanistan) UN Dispatch has acquired details about the demographic composition of Afghanistan’s upcoming 'peace jirga,' the conference at which a strategy for ending the war and reconciling insurgent groups with the Afghan Government will be crafted.
According to a source close to the process, only 20 of approximately 1000 seats at the jirga will be reserved for women, and 30 for representatives from academia and civil society. This was information first divulged on the Twitter feed of Tom Shaw.
Eleven days ago, I heard a rumor that the office of President Hamid Karzai had re-written Afghanistan’s Election Law in ways that would deal a blow to the country’s beleaguered democrats. The changes had gone into force through a presidential decree, I was told. While the international press was still quiet, ripples of alarm were already spreading through Kabul-based civil society.
The story is out now, and the worst has been confirmed.
United Nations human rights experts share the unease Afghan civil society representatives voiced in London last week about the protection of women’s human rights during peace negotiations with the Taliban.
According to the Washington Post, the Taliban leadership council in Quetta is denying that United Nations’ special representative Kai Eide met with any of its members in Dubai last month.