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Afghan gov’t should implement access to information law: Amnesty International
The Afghan government should respect, protect and fulfill the right to information, Amnesty International said, Wednesday.
In Afghanistan, 30 different media organizations have called on the government to effectively implement the Afghan Access to Information Law, including providing information on key human rights issues.
“Afghanistan’s journalists are among the bravest in the world. Working in some of the most difficult conditions, they have faced threats, intimidation and violence for the work they do. The government must create an enabling environment, where they can carry their work freely and without fear,” said Omar Waraich, Deputy South Asia Director at Amnesty International.
“The government has a responsibility to not just protect journalists but provide access to information in line with Afghan laws and the country’s international obligations on the right to freedom of expression.”
In a joint statement, the 30 Afghan media organizations said they were being denied access to information from several government departments, including the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Directorate for Security intelligence agency, the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Afghanistan and the Ministry of Defence.
“The government must ensure people can access all the information necessary to realize their human rights and hold the authorities accountable for their actions in the spirit of transparency ,” Omar Waraich noted.
The journalists said they were being denied information on a series of cases involving corruption and human rights violations. These included night-time “search operations” by Afghan security forces that have caused civilian casualties, allegations of sexual abuse by government officials, and the abduction of two human rights defenders who exposed an alleged paedophile ring.
“Afghanistan has a strong law on access to information, but it is not being implemented properly. Journalists in Afghanistan have a right to access information held by public bodies and it is the right of the general public to receive information through them,” said Omar Waraich.
“The government must ensure people can access all the information necessary to realize their human rights and hold the authorities accountable for their actions in the spirit of transparency.”
In the pursuit of information from public bodies, journalists must not be intimidated, threatened or harmed in any other way. In the past, there have been cases where journalists in Afghanistan have been subject to abuse and even beaten by government officials for doing their jobs.
In 2019, according to the monitoring group Nai, ten journalists and media workers were killed in Afghanistan by armed groups, including the Taliban. In June 2019, the Taliban threatened to treat Afghan journalists as a military target in brazen violation of the laws of war.
The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, officials in the local administration of Herat said that due to severe cold along the illegal migration route to Iran, three Afghan migrants have lost their lives in the Kohsan district of the province, and a shepherd has also died there for the same reason.
Mohammad Yousuf Saeedi, spokesperson for the Herat governor’s office, said that some statistics and images shared on social media regarding the incident are not reliable.
According to him, further investigations are underway to determine whether any individuals have died on the other side of the border.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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