Kandahar police chief pours scorn on HRW report

KANDAHAR CITY (Pajhwok): Gen. Abdul Raziq, police chief for southern Kandahar province, on Thursday rejected the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that accused him and other high profile officials of human right abuses.

Gen. Raziq insisted the report had been prepared in understanding with Taliban and did not have even an iota of truth. He said the United Nations and other international organisation, claiming to be neutral, had always been “on wrong side”.

Others Afghan officials were also accused of human rights violations in the freshly released HRW report that had been rejected as “baseless and a plot to defame Afghan leaders.”

The HRW report released on March 3 calls on President Ashraf Ghani and his government to prosecute officials and commanders “whose serious human rights abuses have long gone unpunished.”

The report titled Today We Shall All Die: Afghanistan‘s Strongmen and the Legacy of Impunity, said the “previous Afghan government and the United States enabled powerful and abusive individuals and their forces to commit atrocities for too long without being held to account.”

The report based on 125 interviews HRW has carried out since August 2012 profiles eight “strongmen” linked to police, intelligence, and militia forces responsible for serious abuses in recent years.

The eight men named were Hazara leader Abdul Hakim Shojoyi, former Takhar police chief Khair Mohammad Timur, Afghan Local Police Commander Azizullah from the Urgun district in Paktika province, Atta Mohammad Noor, the incumbent acting governor of northern Balkh province, Najibullah Kapisa, the National Directorate of Security chief for Takhar, Mir Alam, a former commander with the Jamiat party, Asadullah Khalid, the former head of the National Security Directorate, and General Abdul Raziq, the Kandahar provincial police commander.

nh/rm

Views: 9