| The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released prior to January 20, 2001. Please see www.state.gov for material released since President George W. Bush took office on that date. This site is not updated so external links may no longer function. Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. |
Title: Afghanistan Human Rights Practices, 1993
Date: January 31, 1994
Author: U.S. Department of State
AFGHANISTAN*
The political situation in Afghanistan in 1993 was
characterized by the absence of effective central authority and
an ongoing civil war among contending political factions.
Governmental functions, where they were performed at all, were
split between a fragmented central Government and several
warring factions and regional councils which attempted--with
mixed success--to establish some local civil administration.
In March leaders of nine major political groups met in
Islamabad, Pakistan and agreed, under the terms of the
Islamabad Accords, to participate in a transitional grand
coalition until elections could be held. Fighting among
various groups continued, however, and in May the factional
leaders reconvened in Jalalabad and agreed on how the
transition was to be implemented. The terms of these Accords
have not been fully met and, despite the drafting of an interim
set of constitutional principles and inconclusive discussions
about elections, intermittent fighting and a general political
stalemate continued in Kabul.
No formal internal security apparatus has been established by
the coalition Government. The unstable political situation,
exacerbated by the presence of well-armed party militias in the
capital, has produced an array of regional security bodies,
many of which frequently operate independently of both party
authorities and the fractious central Government.
The Afghan economy is based on agriculture, with land tenure in
the hands of individuals or family/tribal groups and with some
land remaining under feudal control of the traditional Khans.
The collapse of irrigation systems, deterioration of market
roads, and the danger of millions of unmarked land mines have
seriously impeded agricultural production. Small-scale
commerce, manufacturing, and mining activities also exist.
In the volatile and tense political environment of 1993, human
rights were routinely violated on a large scale. The country
had no constitution, national judicial system, or effective
central government. Observance of human rights varied greatly
from place to place, depending on the character of the local
commander and his relationship with the local populace.
*Since the staff of the American Embassy in Kabul was withdrawn
for security reasons in 1989, the United States has no official
presence in Afghanistan. This report therefore draws to a
large extent on non-U.S. government sources.
Throughout much of the country, there was a continued absence
of the rule of law. While conditions approaching near normalcy
returned to parts of the north, central, and western regions,
Kabul was wracked by intermittently heavy fighting and
widespread human rights abuses. Forces loyal to various
factions represented in the coalition Government rocketed and
shelled the capital in battles that left an estimated 18,000
people, mostly civilians, dead or wounded. Gunmen are said to
have engaged in looting, rape, and murder of civilians in the
ongoing struggle to control the capital.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
Freedom from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
Thousands of Afghans, including specific individuals targeted
for assassination, died in 1993 during the course of the civil
conflict. Perpetrators and motives were difficult to identify
in most cases, as political motives were often entwined with
family and tribal feuds, battles over drug turf, religious
zealotry, and personal vendettas.
Intense factional fighting in Kabul in February was marked by
reported excesses, even atrocities, attributed to both
Hezb-i-Wahdat fighters and the Ittehad-i-Islami/Shura-i-Nazar
alliance. These reports included incidents of mass rape,
abduction, and the torture and murder of both combatant
prisoners and civilians. In February, according to press
reports, approximately 60 women were seized by armed men, held
in the Institute of Social Sciences in Kabul, raped, and
killed. Also in February, four U.N. employees were murdered
near the city of Jalalabad. Neither the motive nor identity of
the killers was discovered. In July in Nangarhar province, a
local group, calling itself "The Oppressed" and supported by
members of the former Communist regime, was attacked by other
factions, including men loyal to Shomali Khan, a member of the
Nangarhar Provincial Council. At least a dozen members of The
Oppressed were captured and summarily executed. In September
Shomali Khan was himself killed, along with four bodyguards and
some 20 bystanders, in a hail of bullets and rockets in
Jalalabad. Shortly afterward, Nasir Khan, Shomali Khan's
brother, was detained by a rival faction commander, allegedly
tortured, and killed while in custody. Also in September,
Mansur Nadiri, a leader of the minority Ismaili sect,
reportedly escaped an assassination attempt in Kabul that
killed a number of his bodyguards, and Yunis Qanuni, political
director in the Ministry of Defense, was seriously wounded when
a bomb concealed in a vendor's cart exploded as his car passed
nearby. None of the perpetrators was apprehended.
Convicted murderers were summarily shot after Shari'a court
trials in Kunar, Kabul, and Nangarhar provinces. There were
also reports of instances in which relatives of a murder victim
were allowed by local commanders to "slaughter" the convicted
murderer, using a knife, in a so-called "qisas" (revenge)
ritual. In one well-publicized case in northern Helmand
province, the wife of a murder victim carried out the sentence;
this was believed to be the first case of a "qisas" killing by
a woman.
b. Disappearance
Hostage taking was again common in 1993, particularly during
the outbursts of heavy fighting in Kabul in January, February,
and May. The Government was unable or unwilling to bring an
end to this practice. An American citizen of Afghan origin and
several dozen Soviet prisoners of war who disappeared during
the Soviet-Afghan conflict remained unaccounted for.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment
There were numerous unconfirmed reports that ill-treatment and
torture were used to extract information from prisoners being
held by feuding political factions.
Traditional laws and punishments were often invoked in the
absence of a functioning judicial system. These punishments
traditionally include the amputation of hands and feet for
those convicted of theft. International press reports suggest
that women were frequently abused and often raped by fighters
from the various warring factions, especially in Kabul.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
Informed observers agree that the rule of law has broken down
in most of Afghanistan. Justice is administered locally
without reference to any clear central legal system. Little is
known about legal protection under current conditions, and it
is doubtful that any uniform procedures exist for taking
persons into custody and bringing them to trial.
The factions that form the coalition Government and independent
local commanders are believed to hold up to 1,300 opponents or
hostages in private prisons.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
With the widespread breakdown of the judicial system, little
was known about the administration of justice in 1993, although
some municipalities and provincial authorities were known to
have held public trials. Various leaders of the national
political parties strongly back the imposition of Shari'a, or
Islamic law, and it appeared that many local and provincial
legal procedures were based on Islamic juridical precepts.
Traditional tribal procedures also play a prominent role in the
judicial process in some parts of Afghanistan; in many
instances it is likely that these procedures do not accord with
the protection of a fair public trial envisioned by
international human rights standards.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
During periods of intense fighting in Kabul, there were many
instances of looting, forced entry of homes, and other forms of
arbitrary interference by members of factions contending for
control of the capital.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
Law in Internal Conflicts
Five major factions, aligned in two loose coalitions, fought
over Kabul, wreaking widespread destruction and causing many
deaths.
Despite Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's denials, credible
reports indicate his Hezb-i-Islami faction fired numerous
rockets at the capital, frequently demolishing residential or
commercial districts of no discernible military value.
Artillery, tank cannon fire, mortars, rocket-propelled
grenades, and automatic weapons were employed regularly and
indiscriminately in Kabul in the low-intensity fighting.
In February gunmen affiliated with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's
Ittehad-i Islami group and those of former Defense Minister
Ahmad Shah Masood's Shura-i-Nazar seized the largely Shi'a
neighborhood of Afshar from the rival Shi'a Wahdat militia. On
February 11th and 12th, armed men rampaged through the quarter,
raping, looting, and killing civilians. One eyewitness
reported to an Afghan media source that he had seen an elderly
Shi'a man nailed to a tree and then shot in the head. An
Afghan human rights organization reported that marauding
militiamen chopped off limbs and slit the throats of civilians
with bayonets. Estimates of civilians mutilated, killed, or
raped in Afshar ranged from several dozen to over a thousand.
There were indications that armed factions were dragooning
civilians to serve as porters or trench-diggers. In Baghlan
Province, one organization allegedly forcibly conscripted a
member from each family in the area to serve in its militia.
Millions of land mines sown by Soviet, regime, or resistance
forces remain scattered around fortifications and roads and in
the countryside. There is a U.N.-sponsored program to detect
and remove mines, but the devices will pose a significant
hazard to civilians for years to come.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
Freedoms of speech and press are not guaranteed, and in
practice the Government lacks the authority to protect them.
A number of daily and weekly newspapers are published in
Afghanistan; they are generally under the control of the
central or regional government or are organs of one of the
political parties. The government-owned radio and television
services were under the control of President Burhanuddin
Rabbani's Jamiat-i-Islami party, but air time was occasionally
granted to other groups. Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
and National Islamic Movement leader General Abdul Rashid
Dostam periodically broadcast radio and television programs
from their own facilities.
In August AfghaNews reported that Prime Minister Hekmatyar
sought to dissuade Kabul Radio from reporting rocket attacks on
the city and sought reprisals against local journalists who
wrote unflattering articles about him.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
In the current unsettled conditions, Afghans have a bewildering
array of political groups with which they are free to
associate. However, the prohibition against non-Islamic
political parties remains in effect. Peaceful assembly was
limited in practical terms by the dangerous security conditions
in Kabul but was practiced elsewhere. Public mass
demonstrations were occasionally held; in August several
thousand people affiliated with a number of Afghan parties
reportedly demonstrated without interference in the northern
city of Taloqan against alleged Russian and Tajikistani
bombardment of Afghan villages in reprisal for cross-border
raids by insurgents opposed to the Government of Tajikistan.
c. Freedom of Religion
Approximately 85 percent of Afghanistan's population is Sunni
Muslim. Islam is the state religion, as enshrined in the
official name of the country, the Islamic State of
Afghanistan. In September the draft constitutional principles
prepared under the auspices of President Rabbani declared the
Hanafi (Sunni) rite as the basis of the State's Islamic
foundation. The minority Shi'a community strongly objected,
and the Shi'a Wahdat militia reportedly responded by attacking
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf's religiously conservative Sunni forces.
Non-Muslims resident in Afghanistan may practice their faith,
but may not proselytize, according to an official Afghan
source. The country's small Sikh and Hindu communities, once
totaling some 50,000, continued to dwindle as their members
emigrated or became refugees in the wake of the intense
religious violence to which they were subjected in some urban
areas following the destruction of the Ayodya mosque in India
in December 1992. There were scattered reports that zairats,
shrines of Sufi Muslim orders, and some pre-Islamic funereal
totems in Nuristan were also being vandalized.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
Afghans were able to travel with relative freedom, both within
and across the country's borders. However, travel was
restricted by the deterioration of the national road network,
the millions of undetected land mines, brigandage, and the
unsettled political situation. Quasi-authorized checkpoints
extracted tolls in cash or kind from travelers. Ethnic
tensions limited the ability of some groups to travel safely
through areas controlled by other groups. This made
repatriation of Afghans who had fled to Pakistan and Iran
difficult or, for some, impossible.
As a result of 15 years of fighting, Afghans form the world's
largest refugee population, comprised predominantly of women
and children. The high rates of return in 1992, when 1.4
million Afghans repatriated from Pakistan and Iran, fell
sharply in 1993. Approximately 600,000 refugees returned to
Afghanistan in 1993, two-thirds of them from Iran. According
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
and the Government of Pakistan, in late 1993 there were 1.46
million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. In addition, roughly 2
million Afghan refugees remained in Iran.
During 1993 approximately 60,000 Tajiks, fleeing civil conflict
in Tajikistan, sought refuge in Afghanistan. In December some
40,000 Tajik refugees remained encamped in northern
Afghanistan. Threats from militant extremist groups, who
wished to manipulate both the refugees and international
organizations for their own ends, kept the UNHCR and other
international organizations from working with about half of
this large refugee population.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens
to Change Their Government
In the absence of a functioning central authority, citizens did
not, in 1993, have the ability to change their government
through peaceful, democratic means. The Grand Council convoked
by President Rabbani in late 1992, which unilaterally extended
his tenure for 2 years, was not regarded as legitimate by other
political factions. After severe fighting broke out in January
and February, the leaders of nine rival factions met in
Islamabad, Pakistan, in March and agreed to form a transitional
grand coalition until elections could be held. The Islamabad
Accords were derailed in May by another outburst of fighting
among the signatory groups over details of their
implementation. The faction leaders reconvened in Jalalabad,
where in late May they signed the Jalalabad Accords, agreeing
to a mechanism for forming a transitional government. The two
key elements of the Jalalabad Accords were an agreement to hold
a council of commanders to choose Ministers of Defense and
Interior, and the collection of heavy weapons by these
authorities prior to national elections. However, these key
stipulations had not been implemented by the end of the year.
In September President Rabbani appointed a 44-member commission
to draft an interim set of constitutional principles. This
document was rejected by two Shi'a parties and other leaders
who objected to its contents on religious grounds or viewed the
process itself as illegitimate. Prime Minister Hekmatyar and
others pressed for early national elections to overcome the
political stalemate, but political infighting prevented
progress on this issue as well.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations
of Human Rights
There are no known local human rights groups in Afghanistan,
and the unsettled conditions in Kabul made it difficult for any
human rights organizations to effectively monitor human rights
issues.
The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Afghanistan
visited Kabul in September. He met with senior Afghan
officials and others and issued a report of his findings in
November. The International Committee of the Red Cross was
allowed to begin prison visits late in the year, in addition to
continuing to provide medical services in Kabul and several
provincial capitals. The Afghan League of Human Rights, based
in Peshawar, Pakistan, issued a report in July condemning human
rights abuses in Afghanistan. The organizer of the League
reported that he subsequently became the target of threats from
parties criticized in the report.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion,
Disability, Language, or Social Status
Women
The participation of women in activities beyond the home and
fields is limited by longstanding customs and religious
beliefs. The Communist regime in the 1980's officially
sanctioned a wider public role for women, whose status
improved, particularly in urban areas, as they began to move,
particularly in urban areas, into nontraditional occupations.
However, the Mujaheddin victory over the Communist regime
prompted a return to more traditional roles for women, largely
restricted to the home or to all-female environments such as
teaching in girls schools or working in female health clinics.
Reports by travelers to Kabul in late 1993 indicated that some
female newscasters had returned to Afghan television, although
they were apparently subject to a strict, conservative Islamic
dress code.
Children
In the absence of an effective central authority in Kabul, it
is not possible to assess the Government's commitment to the
human rights and welfare of children. Various provincial and
national governmental agencies, frequently in conjunction with
international voluntary organizations, the United Nations, and
bilateral donors made some efforts to address the most pressing
social welfare needs of children, particularly in education and
health care.
People with Disabilities
The mentally and physically disabled suffered as a result of
the anarchic situation existing in much of the country. The
international media reported that residents of Kabul's 600-bed
Marastun home for the blind, destitute, and mentally ill were
abandoned by the staff in January as the security situation
deteriorated. Many of the patients wandered away amid the
fighting, other stayed and lived unattended and largely unfed,
more than a dozen were killed in crossfire or rocket attacks,
and a number of mentally ill women were reportedly raped by
gunmen who repeatedly broke into the home.
There is no information indicating whether the Government has
enacted legislation mandating provision of accessibility for
the disabled. Available evidence indicates a large portion of
health care activity of international humanitarian relief
organizations focused on providing prostheses and therapy to
victims of land mines.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
There was little reliable reporting on labor laws and
practices. No labor rallies or strikes were reported. The
Government does not have the means to enforce worker rights at
present, nor is there a functional constitutional or legal
framework that defines and protects them.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
There is no tradition of genuine labor-management bargaining in
Afghanistan. There is no information on any progress in
establishing labor courts and other mechanisms for the
resolution of disputes.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
No information is available on government edicts regarding
forced or compulsory labor.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
There is no evidence that the Government enforces a labor law
relating to the employment of children.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
No information on any statutory minimum wage is available.
Provision appears to be made for time off for prayers and
observance of religious holidays. There appear to be no
effective enforcement mechanisms to ensure fair and safe labor
practices. (###)
[end of document]
Return
to 1993 Human Rights Practices report home page.
Return to DOSFAN
home page.
This is an official U.S. Government source
for information on the WWW. Inclusion of non-U.S. Government links
does not imply endorsement of contents.