Musa Mahmodi Describes Challenges of Protecting Human Rights in Afghanistan

On November 13, 2020, human rights lawyer and defender Mohammad “Musa” Mahmodi discussed his work protecting and promoting human rights in Afghanistan. Mahmodi, who served as Executive Director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, described how working in a conflict-affected country has complicated his endeavors and shaped his advocacy. The event was sponsored by the Schell Center for International Human Rights at the Law School.

Mahmodi acknowledged the added difficulty of defending human rights in a conflict situation. “The promotion and protection of human rights in a conflict situation is associated always with risk, danger, and trauma,” Mahmodi said. “In conflict situations, because the parties often resort to violence, the situation involves gross human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

Compounding those violations on the ground, Mahmodi said, “the political, judicial, and other systems often fail in responding to disputes and injustices.” Protecting and promoting human rights in a “war-torn country” like Afghanistan, he said, thus “requires comprehensive and concerted efforts and mechanisms,” such as independent, effective monitoring through National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and advocacy for protections and promotions of human rights.

Over the past 43 years, Mahmodi explained, the country’s “social fabrics, government institutions, economic frameworks, and civil liberties” have been destroyed. This conflict — “unprecedented in the region,” he said — has claimed over two million Afghan lives and has resulted in over 1.5 million disabled people, five million refugees, and two million internally displaced persons. Human rights violations, Mahmodi said, occur “on a daily basis.”

The International Criminal Court, according to Mahmodi, has begun a “preliminary examination and investigation on Afghanistan” to understand if and how the multiple actors involved have violated the elements of crimes prescribed in the Rome Statute, which includes prohibitions on genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

In the midst of the crisis, human rights defenders including Mahmodi have worked to protect the rights of Afghans. Mahmodi described the national human rights mechanisms established in Afghanistan for monitoring the situation on the ground. The Independent Human Rights Commission emerged in 2002 as an independent, national body “autonomous” from the government with a “broad mandate” of investigating human rights violations and abuses and the goal of being “accessible to all people.” The Commission, Mahmodi said, receives “complaints, petitions, information, data, and statements about the human rights situation” and then investigates, assesses, and publishes reports on their key findings. “Monitoring is essential during a conflict,” Mahmodi emphasized.

The Commission’s purview is comprehensive; in Mahmodi’s time, the Commission conducted over 1,500 monitoring missions annually that collected information from “rural areas, detention facilities, prisons, juvenile correctional centers,” and other places, with a focus on people’s “economic and social rights.” The Commission has monitored and investigated human rights violations, civilian casualties, violence against women, rights violations affecting people with disabilities, and people’s access to services and political rights. Especially in a conflict, Mahmodi said, people tend to live in “miserable conditions” and their rights to live in dignity as well as their freedoms of speech, assembly, and association “must be realized and protected.”

Part of the Commission’s work to promote human rights, Mahmodi said, involved “educating far more people on human rights than anyone else in the region.” Their education program involved teaching people, regardless of their literacy, about their rights and freedoms. “We taught children about child rights and human rights,” Mahmodi said. “We also empowered and educated women on human rights to raise awareness.” He said that women and children are particularly vulnerable groups in conflict situations. Even though Afghanistan has outlawed violence against women and enacted laws to protect women against violence, Mahmodi explained, “traditional religious leaders have resisted” the added protections. The situation remains extreme, Mahmodi lamented, as women continue to live under the serious threat of gender-based violence. Children are similarly at risk of violence, and they may also be targeted for recruitment by the Taliban or ISIS, he said.

In addition to women and child civilians, Mahmodi explained that the Commission is concerned with the “rights and dignities” of refugees, detainees, and internally displaced persons (IDPs). Refugees, he said, face “unfriendly treatment” and threats to their rights in neighboring countries. The Commission also works with detainees and IDPs to collect data and information on their situation. Their investigations have helped to find the truth, identify the victims, “change the narrative” around civilian casualties and other disputed incidents, deliver compensation to victims, and restore justice “to some degree.”

“We are in need of the international community’s support in the protection and promotion of human rights,” Mahmodi said. “Both national institutions and the international community have a shared responsibility and we should invest in the capacities of civil society, government, and local institutions to uphold human rights.” Mahmodi believes international support is “key” to the fight for human rights in Afghanistan. He argued that the conflict has weakened the rule of law in Afghanistan and that the country therefore requires support from the international community, local leaders, lawyers, and civil society organizations to help implement mechanisms that would “invest and support a sustainable peace based on justice and accountability.”