Hundreds of Zabul residents rally against HRW

QALAT (Pajhwok): Hundreds of residents of southern Zabul province, at a protest meeting, on Friday rejected the latest Human Rights Watch (HRW) report as a bundle of lies.

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 — 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.

Based on 125 interviews HRW carried out since August 2012, the report 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.

A protest meeting was held in Qalat, the provincial capital, to condemn the report. Local elders, religious scholars and youth, who attended the gathering, slammed the document as flawed and groundless.

Ghazi Mohammad Zarrgi, a tribal elder, told Pajhwok Afghan News former National Directorate of Security (NDS) chief, Asadullah Khalid and Kandahar police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq had played a significant role in ensuring peace in the country.

While taking a swipe at the HRW findings, he said Afghan officials’ contribution to stability should be acknowledged and misleading propaganda against them countered effectively in the supreme national interest.

rm/mud

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