Amnesty Chief Sees Little Improvement In Human Rights (Afghanistan)

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http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=35046

RFE / RL
July 10, 2003
By J.M. Ledgard

The secretary-general of Amnesty International has strongly condemned the lack of progress in human rights in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Irene Khan, the head of the London-based international human rights advocacy group, says the transitional Afghan government has failed to impose a rights-based agenda on the reconstruction of the country.

Kabul, 10 July 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Irene Khan says that "a lot of promises" were made about a new Afghanistan and an improved human rights situation for all of its citizens. snip

Khan spoke to RFE/RL in Kabul this week at the end of a fact-finding tour of Afghanistan. She singled out judicial reform and women's rights as key issues the government must urgently address. "The face of insecurity in Afghanistan is feminine," she said. "Women have always had a hard time here. They had a very tough time under the Taliban. Now, we hear stories of rape, abduction, forced marriages."

According to Amnesty, 90 percent of the women in Kabul's prisons are there for so-called sexual crimes. Many have deserted abusive husbands or forced marriages and have been threatened with death by family members. One woman freed by Transitional Administration Chairman Hamid Karzai last November was subsequently killed by a family member.

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