Issues

The women of Afghanistan have come a long way in the past 12 years. The post-Talban Afghan Constitution assures them equal rights and freedoms, access to education, healthcare, employment opportunities, political and social activities.

Mohieddin Mahdi is a well-known politician, and a Member of Parliament. He was a member of the Northern Alliance in the 1980s and later the Deputy Ambassador of Afghanistan to Tajikistan.

Countries emerging from long periods of authoritarian rule must often confront a legacy of gross human rights abuses perpetrated over many years.

Maria Bashir is the Chief Prosecutor General of Herat province. She was the first woman to be appointed Chief Prosecutor in Afghanistan, and is the only woman serving as Chief Prosecutor in any of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

Yassin Negah is the editor-in-chief of Porsesh [Question], a weekly magazine in Afghanistan, and the director of Writers Home, an association for young independent writers and poets.

The government Fact-Finding Commission assigned in connection with the UAMA report on torture and ill treatment of prisoners by Afghan security officials, once again, highlighted massive torture, degrading and inhuman treatment of the prisoners

Suraia Perlika is an activist for human and women’s rights. She founded the Democratic Women’s Organization with five other women in 1965. In 1978, she was held as a political prisoner and tortured for her activities related to women’s rights.

Sediqullah Towhidi is the head of Nai [meaning: Flute], the leading non-government organization supporting open media in Afghanistan.

Khaleda Khorsand is a writer and human rights activist with the Civil Society and Human Rights Network in Herat

Farid Mazdak is a well-known left-wing political activist. He was the leader of the Democratic Youth Organization of Afghanistan in the early 1980s and a leadership member of the Vatan party in the late 1980s.