Armanshahr, NGO investigating war crimes, stranded in Kabul

It has been a week since Mahmoud (a pseudonym) left his hometown in eastern Afghanistan and found refuge in Kabul for fear of Taliban retaliation. Even before the latter imposed themselves, on August 15, like the new masters of the country, this 39-year-old Afghan had stopped going out in the streets and was living in virtual hiding. “Taliban hunt down human rights activists and journalists like me, he explains to World, reached by WhatsApp. The latest case was my close friend Mujib Mehrad, editor of a prominent Afghan daily arrested on Wednesday evening. [25 août]. He was only released after long negotiations. And there are many more other cases that go unheard of. “

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Mahmoud is an employee of the Armanshahr organization. A member of the International Federation for Human Rights, this NGO collected in particular the testimonies of victims of crimes against humanity, committed by all the armed groups involved in Afghanistan. Its work, and that of a few others, enabled, in early 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court to authorize the opening of an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the country by the forces of the Afghan army, the US military – including the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, and all rebel armed groups, including the Taliban.

Armanshahr, whose executive director, Guissou Jahangiri, is French, organized numerous activities – including a week of debates on the occasion of human rights day – with the support of the French Institute of Afghanistan in Kabul . Today, the 16 Afghan members of this NGO – 38 people including members of their families – have still not been evacuated from Afghanistan, despite the risks hanging over them. And France put an end, Friday, August 27 in the evening, to its evacuation operations.

“They will do whatever they want with us”

“Due to our close links with France, we tried to contact the Quai d’Orsay crisis unit to organize the evacuation of our employees., explains Guissou Jahangiri, but they are still stranded in Afghanistan. Now that France has ended its operations, we are told that they must go to Delhi or Tehran so that Paris can help them. The problem is that many do not have passports and are stranded. “ In recent months, due to a very large influx of Afghans wanting to leave the country, the wait for a passport has become extremely long. And now, with the new Taliban regime, the conditions for Afghans leaving the country appear even less clear.

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