Human Rights Watch urges IEA to release detained UN, NGO staff

Human Rights Watch in a statement on Wednesday called for the release of two ‌UN staffers and six NGO workers in Afghanistan.

HRW said that six male staff working with the Women and Children Legal Research Foundation (WCLRF) had been “forcibly disappeared” from the NGO’s Kabul ​office last month. The NGO has been involved in aid programmes and advocacy on women’s ​and children’s rights, HRW said.

In a separate incident, Human Rights Watch also called ⁠for the release of two Afghan staff members of the UN’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), who were ​detained by IEA officials in the western city of Herat on Sunday.

The IEA’s spokesman, ​Zabihullah Mujahid, told Reuters that he was “trying to gather details” about the recent detentions, but had “not received final clarity.”

The UN confirmed the detention of two of its staffers earlier this week. “UNAMA has not been informed of the charges against them ​and has not been permitted to visit them,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said ​in a briefing on Wednesday.

Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan Researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the detentions ‌of UNAMA ⁠staff threatened the UN’s “ability to deliver lifesaving aid.”

As the UN’s political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA is involved in human rights monitoring and data gathering. Its reports have frequently been criticised by the IEA government in the past.