NEW YORK: UN human rights experts Friday called on Afghanistan to take early decisive action to prevent killings of human rights defenders, while calling attention to a recent spate of such deaths.
“The killing of one human rights defender is a tragedy for society; the death of nine defenders since the beginning of this year shows the emergence of a truly alarming trend,” Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, said in a statement. “Already by August, Afghanistan has far exceeded last year’s figures.”
“Impunity allows the perpetuation of such crimes and implies a lack of recognition for human rights defenders’ role in society,” the experts said, noting that investigations in many cases had not yet yielded any results.
“There needs to be full accountability for such egregious violations of human rights,” they added. They cited the case of Asmatullah Salaam, who worked on promoting the right to education in the province of Ghazni, was abducted and killed as he made his way to celebrate Eid with his family on 1st August.
His death came not long after Fatimah Natasha Khalil and Ahmad Jawed Folad were killed on their way to work at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission on 27th June. Human rights defender Ibrahim Ebrat was shot dead in Zabul in May.–Agencies
