The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Armanshahr Foundation and the Herat Young People’s Literary Society organised a poetry reading night at the regional offices of the AIHRC in Herat on 4 June 2013 to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the commission’s establishment. Poets, writers, cultural activists and members of the AIHRC from different provinces were present at the meeting.
A number of the guests recited their poems. The moderator, Ms Farideh Rahmani, opened the meeting with a poem on love. She then went on: The works of the leading Persian-language literature indicate their respect for human dignity. We praise human dignity in this poetry reading night.
Subsequently, director of the AIHRC’s regional office, Mr Abdulqader Rahimi, recited a couplet from Hafiz to begin his welcoming remarks to the guests.
Master Nesar Ahmad accompanied the poetry readings with his music. The poems were mainly concerned with social and political issues but there were love poems to shed the tarnish of war and to remind that the glorious history of the Persian literature is full of affection and love, where we find the human beings as part of one body and the suffering of humans as the common suffering of humanity.
When social and political poems were recited, there exploded bombs, bombs, human bombs; and humans were crushed under militarism and despotism.
The poets who recited poetry at the meeting were: Javid Nabizadeh, Ali Akbar Nazari, Roya Sharifi, Vida Sharifi, Mojgan Faramanesh, Khaled Qaderi, Saeed Haydari, Najib Babrakzai (from Khost), Mr Fetrat (from Faryab), Ramin Arabnejad, Ahmad Mousavi, Rashed Ramez, Nazir Ahmad Behrad, Esmatullah Asem, Gholam-Haydar Qodsi, Moshen Jamshidi, Mojgan Sadat, Farhad Farhat, Ehsan Baratpour (From Iran), Morsal Ahmadzai (From Kandahar), and Vahid Vahidi.