UN Rights Body Needs to Investigate Abuses in AfghanistanHuman Rights Council’s Credibility Hinges on Taking Strong Action at Emergency Session
UN Rights Body Needs to Investigate Abuses in Afghanistan
Human Rights Council’s Credibility Hinges on Taking Strong Action at Emergency Session
23th August, 2021 /Time: 7pm
Reported By Okoi Ubi for Esther Child Rights Foundation
As reports mount of grave human rights abuses by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the United Nations Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session this week. It should immediately mandate the strongest possible monitoring mechanism.
Before their takeover of Kabul on August 15, Taliban forces were already committing atrocities, including summary executions of government officials and security force members in their custody. In Kabul since then, they have raided homes of journalists and activists, apparently searching for those who criticized them in the past. In places around the country they have restricted girls’ education and women’s ability to work. This follow years of abuses by all parties to the conflict.
The situation is so grave it merited a special session of the council, to be held on August 24. It’s critical that the council adopt a resolution creating an international monitoring and accountability mechanism to address ongoing abuses.
Unfortunately, there are ominous signs that UN member countries may fail to show the leadership needed. A text drafted by Pakistan as leader of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) recommends the weakest possible response, no investigation or monitoring body, just a future discussion on a report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights that was already mandated. For Afghan human rights defenders and women’s rights activists who are watching in horror as the rule of law crumbles around them, the draft resolution is more of an insult than a response. So far no country has stepped forward to lead an initiative to create a strong monitoring mechanism.
Governments may be preoccupied by the evacuation crisis at Kabul’s airport or prefer a “wait and see” approach while the Taliban consolidates control, but urgent action is needed. With serious abuses already unfolding, any delay will send a message of indifference to the Taliban, with potentially dire consequences. A failure to act now while atrocities mount could indelibly tarnish the council’s credibility not just in Afghanistan, but in other human rights crises.
The council should put in place a credible mechanism immediately.
The Afghan people are looking to the UN to stand up for human rights. The Human Rights Council, the UN’s preeminent human rights body, should not abandon them.
Proposed Pakistan Authority Seeks Greater Control of Media
Would Allow Unchecked Powers to Punish News Outlets, Journalists
The Pakistani government is seeking broad new powers to control the media as part of its crackdown on freedom of expression. Journalists, human rights activists, and political leaders across that country have raised the alarm about proposed legislation that would bolster powers of the government to censor and restrict the media.
The government claims an ordinance setting up the Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) would replace the “fractured” regulatory environment and “fragmented” media regulations currently in place. The proposed PMDA would bring all media in Pakistan – print, television, radio, films, and digital media – under one regulator.
Pakistan’s current broadcast media regulator, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), has long been the enforcer of the government’s intensifying campaign of repression of the media. It has ordered television channels to shut down for airing criticism of the government, terminated live interviews of opposition leaders, and blocked cable operators from broadcasting networks that aired critical programs.
Journalists, human rights activists, and lawyers said the PMDA law would grant new unchecked powers to the government-controlled regulator by setting up special “media tribunals” that will have the power to impose steep fines for media organizations and journalists who violate its code of conduct or publish content it deems to be “fake news.” The proposed law would also increase government control by allowing government officials to be appointed to key positions.
The government has kept the final draft of the PMDA law and the entire drafting process secret, raising further apprehensions among the media and civil society groups. The government has undertaken no meaningful consultative process on the law.
The media regulatory framework in Pakistan does need to be amended – not to centralize more powers in government censors, but to create independent media regulators dedicated to protecting free expression. With journalists under relentless attack for doing their jobs, the Pakistan government needs to stop trying to control reporters and instead start protecting media freedom.
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