Thank you all for coming. Just as a matter of background, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has established the mandate for an Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan. The mandate is twofold. It includes reporting on the situation of human rights in the country as well as the development of a programme of advisory services in close consultation with the government, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission as well as UNAMA.

The goal of this mission as well as the prior mission is to ascertain the progress made in the field of human rights. This mission as well as my last mission were organized by UNAMA and I wish to thank UNAMA for having organized this mission as well as the prior one.

This report that I will prepare on the basis of this visit will be a follow up on the previous report, which I have submitted to the Third Committee of the General Assembly on 28 October 2004. I will follow with this report by dealing with some of the issues, which were previously dealt with as well as new issues.

In the first place, I would like to say that both myself as well as UNAMA and the United Nations are extremely gratified as a result of the Independent Expert’s last visit and efforts made, there has been a release of over 750 prisoners from Pol-e-Charkhi, who were brought there from Shiberghan prison; people who have been detained for over 30 months without any form of legal process, and we are elated that President Karzai has accepted our request to have those persons released and he has indeed released them.

Our report outlined a number of issues; many of which are still matters of concern to us now. Among the primary matters of concern we have to start with the justice system, its capacity for functioning and its effectiveness, the prison system and many of its weaknesses and the treatment of human persons within it and its compliance with the United Nations Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Offenders. The increase problems related to the drug cultivation as well as the conversion of drug cultivation into drug products, which are exported abroad, and the consequences that these have on the development of an entire drug-driven economy in the country as well as the creation of substantial wealth among the drug lords and their ability to corrupt agencies in government.

Another concern is in fact the attractiveness of the drug cultivation and drug traffic is likely to bring about a transformation of previous warlords - local commanders into the business of the drugs and in fact converting many of the military and para-military personnel of these units into a new form of organized crime with serious consequences not only on human rights but on the political, social and economic benefits of this country. So, these factors all have to be taken together.

There has been some progress in the political arena as many have witnessed in the Presidential Election and are hopeful to see the Legislative Election but in other areas, that progress has not been that significant. We noted with great satisfaction, and I am indebted to the Gender Adviser of UNAMA for bringing to my attention, a fatwa that the Ulemas have passed to urge husbands to allow their wives to go and register and vote. That is a significant progress and we certainly hope that the Ulemas will continue in that direction and will issue more fatwas that will enhance the rights of women under the Sharia. But we are concerned that maybe traditional habits that have existed in this country for quite some time have not changed enough to allow for any visible indications of the reduction of violence against women in the domestic context and also with respect to women’s access to justice. Quite obviously the failure to develop mechanisms for allowing women, minority groups, disenfranchised groups and the poor to have access to justice is quite a serious problem.

Lastly, we do have a concern with this so called customary system of justice. The potential for human rights abuses in that context are enormous. There seems to be very little attention paid on how to reform that system and make it more part of a parallel system to the formal system with a great deal more of effectiveness and without the intervention of either corruption or traffic of influence, which reduces that.

I would like to just end on two or three specific examples, which are matters that should be of grave concern to the Afghan government, as well as to society at large and that is the dire conditions in prisons. We have visited prisons both in Kabul as well as in Logar and for example, the prison in Logar consists of a metal container, buried in the ground and the basement of a rented house, whose ceilings are about to fall. In both prisons, the conditions are below human standards by any means and they are in total violation of the United Nations Minimum Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners. Assume an area a little larger than the podium on which I stand and which is the metal container in which 10 human beings are kept there. Three of them are being kept in shackles; hands and feet with metal bar for 24 hours a day, in this case for 6 weeks. The practice of having people in shackles in prison is quite widespread in the country. It is an inhumane practice, it is an illegal practice and it should not be tolerated.

There is some correlation between the shackles and the fact that in many of the provincial areas, the guards aren’t paid and that frequently, this becomes the income of the guards to put people in shackles so those who can afford to pay are freed from the shackles. In one particular prison, that has been visited by UNAMA staffs, the guards have not been paid for 4 months and this was their only source of income. The amount of money allocated to the prisoners is also shockingly low; Afg.30 currency for a prisoner for 24 hours a day which includes not only food but medication and money for kerosene to occasionally have a generator either to produce some heat or light which is quite rare. Quite obviously, assuming that the Afg.30 are all spent on the prisoners (and there is reason to doubt that all is actually spent on them), there is no doubt that this is far below the minimum possibilities.

There are no medical facilities in the prisons. If there are, there is just a form of medical facility in appearance. There is a room called the infirmary with maybe two beds, there are no doctors, no medical equipment and there is hardly any medication. There is no way of transporting sick prisoners from the prison to hospital facilities. For example, in Logar yesterday, we saw 3 prisoners who were ill and one in particular who has been severely beaten; we don’t know his condition and he was just laying there and there was no possibility of finding a way to transport him to medical facilities.
We are also quite concern with the situation in Kabul where there was a remodeled prison for women but it turned out as a result of an argument between the MoI and MoJ, it was never quite certain who controlled it. Ultimately the MoI controlled it and as a result of that, some women remained there. We don’t know why. We think their presence there is illegal. The MoI has no right to keep these women there. Others have been transferred to Pol-e-Charkhi and we have serious concerns because women detention facilities should not be in the same place as men detention facilities and that is taking place.

As many of you know, there is the very inhuman situation in which the women prisoners have to keep their children with them and so when you go to a women’s prison facility there are more children there than women. So, in effect, the crimes of the mothers are carried out onto the children who are paying the price. But the prison authorities do not provide food for the children. So the mothers have to divide the rations and the food for the children. They have to divide the space and the bed and the blanket, producing truly inhumane conditions not only on the mothers but on the innocent children as well.

There are many similar issues, which we would highlight in our report. There are a number of issues relating also to the rights of women, relating to the abduction of children, to child trafficking and that, if you will, is the conclusion to this aspect of it.

But I would also like to bring to the attention of the media, which will be in my report, that there is a very unusual practice in Afghanistan namely foreign forces who have taken upon themselves the right, without any legal process, in arresting people, detaining them, mistreating them and possibly even torturing them. There is no legal basis for Coalition Forces to hold people as prisoners. If they are held as prisoners of war, then they have to observe the Geneva Conventions. If they are held as common prisoners, then they have to conform with Afghani law and the constitution. They are not doing that. This Independent Expert has been denied access to Bagram and Kandahar and this is a matter of grave concern.

Lastly, there is a tendency, probably a tendency brought about by the Coalition Forces who are responsible for the army and the police in Afghanistan to multiply special units in the police such as the Special Security Forces, the Special Anti-Drug Forces, and the Special Quick Response Forces and now we hear of another very secret unit called the Special Forces. All of these units seem to operate outside the framework of the established legal control. All of them seem to have their own places of detention in which we have reports of torture and mistreatment and there seem to be no ability of the law to reach them. So in effect, what we are seeing at a time when we need to reinforce legal institutions that we are creating, are institutions that seem to be beyond the reach of the law and that is a matter of serious concern.

Question and Answer:

Question: According to the result of your research, what percentage of human rights violations in Afghanistan is caused by traditional incorrect customs?

IE: Well, normally what we consider to be human rights violations are violations by the government or government agencies against the people, not as between one individual and another, unless we have a practice that is so widespread and systematic that we then believe the government should intervene in order to discontinue and in this case the violation would be when the government fails to take action.

Question: You planned to go to different places in Afghanistan to meet authorities. Have you met authorities and what their response?

IE: Well, the government in every possible way expresses support for human rights, support for the rule of law and the commitment to uphold it. But what it is, there is a difference between what the government says and what the government does. The difference is, in some cases, it has to do with the fact that the government lacks resources but frequently there seems to be a lack of system of monitoring within the government to make sure that their obligations are carried forward.

Question: Last week, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission had a report about human rights violation in Afghanistan and they named just one person in their report. But there is more than one human rights violator in Afghanistan. Could you tell us why did they just name one person?

IE: I believe that the report was supposed to have no names at all and it was a mistake to have just left one name when they were preparing the report for publication and that happened. But I would like here to say that the UN is committed to accountability and is opposed to impunity and consequently if there are any matters involving violations of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, slavery or slavery-related practices which are international crimes, that the UN is committed that justice occurs. This is something the government would have to look into and to see how it can achieve that, in what stages it can do it and the immediate stage which is required is to exercise what is called the vetting process and that is to make sure people with that type of criminal background do not occupy public positions or positions of trust and confidence or positions where they exercise authority on other people.

There are other mechanisms to achieve transitional justice or post-conflict justice such as the establishment of the truth commission or historic commission and ultimately prosecution of persons. The High Commissioner was here a few days ago and she discussed these plans and it is now up to the government of Afghanistan to follow up and certainly the AIHRC is very interested and will follow up on the subject.

Question: You are talking about concerns of special security services, are you talking about Afghan authorities or foreign companies?

IE: There are two separate issues, the Coalition Forces have their own different agencies and there is a multiplication of it as well as possibly contractors acting as private individuals. But within the Afghan government itself, we now see a difference in specialized forces and my concern is not the fact that these forces exist, there could be a very valid purpose in having specialized forces. The question is, these specialized forces are seen to be able to exercise the right to arrest outside the law, the right of interrogation and mistreatment of people outside the law and the law is unable to reach them or to ensure against these violations.

Question: So, you are not talking about government or officials or some thing else?

IE: No, no, no. There are certain special forces, security forces, anti-terrorism forces, quick intervention forces and now something called special forces. There are four highly organized units. It is not something, which is just happening. These are four well-established organized government units.

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