Peace, the bright pattern of «Angaara» magazine

The secretariat of the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) is pleased to announce that the new volume of «Angaara» magazine has been published. Peace and respect to social security constitute one of the important strategic components of CSHRN. According to CSHRN, peace is a proper and fair way for securing, promoting and defending the Human Rights values, democracy and the rule of law. Meanwhile, peace cannot be separated or kept away from the social justice. CSHRN considered the securement of Human Rights as one the most crucial and significant backgrounds for generalizing peace in Afghanistan. Respecting the women's rights constitutes one these values. Hence, Angaara has initiated peace discourses as the most obvious social demands of Afghans in its new version. The new version of «Angaara» has been dedicated to peace and its challenges in Afghanistan as well as its role on the international security. The working group of «Angaara» magazine has tried their best to professionally discuss the factors of the continues wars and conflicts from various angles as political, juridical and sociological point of views. The aim of publishing the dedicated version, is advocating for peace and stability in the country. In this volume, the national and international writers, analysts and researchers have expressed their ideas and topics regarding peace, that have been discussed slightly by other institutions and media in the country. Rahnaward Zaryab, a famous Afghan writer has provided a very precious article about the values of peace in the Persian Literature. In this issue, a commendable interview was done with Mr. Ahmad Rasheed, a well known Pakistani journalist and analyst, regarding the peace situation in the region and the role of its players. Dr. Sima Samar, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHC) and one of Human…

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Some interviews with ordinary people in Bamyan province concerning access to information and its outcomes in Afghanistan

During the last year CSHRN organized a broad- wide dialogue concerning access to information draft law which is a very important on going activity of CSHRN. In order to receive the feed back of ordinary people the CSHRN Bamyan office made survey- interviews with some people in the Bazaar of Bamyan city. By: Ms. Taeba Khawari and Mr. Ismail Zaki Mr. Mohammad is one of the unskilled worker in Bamyan city, I asked him in a very simple language about access to information. I explained him what do we mean by access to information and then I looked for his opinion. He explained that access to information plays the role of a light in a dark tunnel; if we do not have this light we are not able to find the exit door easily. For example I have the same problem in my life. I do not know about my future if some body informs me about our government programs or Bamyan city development programs then it is much easier for me to know my role to play. Liaqat Ali is one of the painter and calligrapher of Bamyan city; we were going to ask him the same question. It seems he is more clever and smart, he says information plays an important role for each citizens every where in our country. If we had access to information we never experienced three decades of war in Afghanistan. The problem is we do not know about each other culture, ethnic background and national interest. Lack of information created a gap between different cultures in Afghanistan. That is why we became very aggressive against each others. I can imagine if a person does not have access to information he looks like a blind person who does not know what to…

Continue ReadingSome interviews with ordinary people in Bamyan province concerning access to information and its outcomes in Afghanistan

(Angaara 8)

The Angaara Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine for persons dealing professionally with human rights. The magazine offers in depth articles and interviews on current human rights issues in Afghanistan. It is at present published in 5000 copies and is distributed directly through CSHRN. Thanks to the distribution via the regional offices of CSRHN in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad, it reaches also rather remote areas. The Angaara Magazine is used by universities as part of their teaching and studying material, by groups of intellectuals as base for discussions and by the parliament and the Afghan administration as a base of knowledge. ……………………………………………… Read The PDF

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CSHRN was adopted as the main partner by Tawanmandi ORG

Since 2010, the human rights organizations decided to create a supportive box (fund) for supporting the civil society institutions in Afghanistan in order to coordinate some practical and constructive programs for strengthening the civil society institutions in the country. The Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Swiss are the states that work to bringing together the international help and supports in strengthening the civil society institutions; therefore they have managed many consultative meetings with civil institutions since 2010. The outcome of these meetings is establishing Civil Society Understanding and Supportive center by the name of «Tawanmandi». Tawanmandi has commenced its operations since 2012, and coordinated its activities in three stages. The first stage was forming organizational capacities. During this period, managerial and administrative guidelines and standards were created. The second stage was the early phase of supporting, during this stage a number of civil society institutions were technically and economically supported by Tawanmandi. The third stage of Tawanmandi's activities was concerning with selecting the main partners in different fields. Human Rights is one of the key issues in the programs of Tawanmandi in Afghanistan. In order to better recognize its main partners, Tawanmandi has assessed monitoring, managerial and administrative programs of many organizations. Monitoring groups of Tawanmandi have evaluated and observed the organizational, managerial, administrative and executive structures of the organizations that provided their proposals for strategic partnership with Tawanmandi ORG. In the meantime, Tawanmandi has evaluated their strategic programs and policies, and as a result, CSHRN has successfully passed the evaluation process and was formally recognized as the main partner of Tawanmandi in the field of strengthening human rights in the country. CSHRN's executive programs in cooperation and coordination with Tawanmandi will be started from 2014. These programs will be concerning with human rights advocacy, capacity building…

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Access to information creates conviction

An interview with Mr. Sarwar Jawadi, member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan about access to information importance in the current situation. By Ismail Zaki Mr. Jawadi, thanks you very much for this interview. In your opinion what is the importance of access to information for the Afghan citizens? Answer: Thank you very much for the interviewing me. To my understanding access to information is a recognized human rights issue. The Afghan constitution confirms access to information as a fundamental right to each citizen. If the Afghan people don't have access to information about main programs, policies and plans of the government, then the confidence between citizens and the state breaks down. The luck of confidence between citizens and state badly damages the legitimacy of the Afghan state and creates instability and disorder in the society. Such a bad mechanism may have negative consequences in the filed of political, economic, social and cultural affaires of each citizen in Afghanistan. Question: In your opinion how does access to information affect the policy making procedures of the Afghan government? Answer: Look, when the information is provided to citizens it creates transparent communication of population with the government, so the civil society, media, lawyers and researchers can play an important role to convey the message of people to the government. I believe in such a situation the government can make proper and realistic policies. Question: As you said access to information is one of the fundamental rights of citizens recognized by the Afghan constitution. What did the Afghan National Assembly do concerning access to information promotion? Answer: According to the law the Afghan parliament can do two things; the first one is to advocate for access to information. In this regard we could approve the media law as a positive tool…

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(Angaara 7)

The Angaara Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine for persons dealing professionally with human rights. The magazine offers in depth articles and interviews on current human rights issues in Afghanistan. It is at present published in 5000 copies and is distributed directly through CSHRN. Thanks to the distribution via the regional offices of CSRHN in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad, it reaches also rather remote areas. The Angaara Magazine is used by universities as part of their teaching and studying material, by groups of intellectuals as base for discussions and by the parliament and the Afghan administration as a base of knowledge.   ……………………………………………… Read The PDF

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Human rights monitoring, as a new working area for CSHRO

Why CSHRO has decided to work in the field of monitoring of human rights in Afghanistan? According to CSHRO researches the civil society and human rights movement has three main responsibilities: The first one is to promote human rights and democratic values in the society. The second responsibility of civil society and human rights organization is to influence to the policies of legislations in order to bring the message of human rights to the political structures of Afghanistan . The third responsibility of human rights organization is to monitor the implementation of human rights values. According to the international practices without monitoring and evaluation of human rights situation it is almost impossible to know about the reality of human rights situation in the country. Such experiences are mainly having been seen in the post war situation. The civil society and human rights member organization during the latest General Assembly has jointly decided to work actively in the fields of monitoring during the phase four of CSHRO. For this purpose CSHRO has designed a working plan for monitoring the human rights situation in Afghanistan . The working plan consists of three main elements, firstly to build the capacity of CSHRO on monitoring of human rights situation. During this period CSHRO Executive Secretariat will organize capacity building programs for the member organization and local offices of CSHRO in the deferent part of the country. The second period is to organize guidelines and formats for collecting the information, cases and local studies. The third part of the program is the implementation of the format which consists of interviews, visits to human rights violation areas and articulation of the analyses. For monitoring of human rights situation CSHRO Executive Secretariat has trained and appointed its Focal Points “representative of CSHRO in the provinces…

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Training of trainers educational program & Human Rights Educational School on UN Security Council Resolution 1325

The program that was attended by 95 trainers of CSHRN from 20 provinces was conducted in Safi Landmark Hotel, Kabul. The goal of the program was to train expert and experienced teachers in the field of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and exchanging and sharing of experiences among CSHRN's trainers and other national structures working on the field of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This program was organized based on the educational manual on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 prepared by the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN). During this educational program, despite discussing regarding the role of women in peace-building, security, increasing capacity-building and familiarity with the activities of various structures in this regard, the trainers have also initiated significant debates about the opportunities and challenges facing women in the process of state-building, institution-building and strengthening peace. In order to converge in the process of implementing this program, more and more coordination amongst the civil, governmental, media and academic institutions was emphasized during this educational school. During the program, the Afghan Women Network (AWN), War Child Canada, the High Peace Council (HPC), and Humanitarian Assessment for Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA) have shared their programs, experiences and find outs with the participants of the program. The Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) is to organize some widespread programs regarding the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 by its experienced and expert trainers across the country.

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(Angaara 6)

The Angaara Magazine is a bi-monthly magazine for persons dealing professionally with human rights. The magazine offers in depth articles and interviews on current human rights issues in Afghanistan. It is at present published in 5000 copies and is distributed directly through CSHRN. Thanks to the distribution via the regional offices of CSRHN in Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad, it reaches also rather remote areas. The Angaara Magazine is used by universities as part of their teaching and studying material, by groups of intellectuals as base for discussions and by the parliament and the Afghan administration as a base of knowledge. ……………………………………………… Read The PDF

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Without freedom of expression and freedom of media, democracy does not have any meaning!

A discussion about access to information with Mr. Fayaz Mehrayeen the political and social analyst. Mr. Mehrayeen is the senior advisor of Governor of Balkh province. He is the author of many articles in the fields of political and social issues. Mr. Mehrayeen delivers constantly lectures and presentations to the academic and civil society groups. By: Farkhonda Arezo Aabi, Journalist and human rights activist in Mazar e Sharif Question: Mr. Mehrayeen! In your point of view what is access to information and what kind of situation does it need? Answer: In my point of view access to information creates transparent, free and fluent relationship between state and citizens. Access to information means access of citizens to state resources, documents and information that foster the culture of transparency and accountability in the government structure. Question: What are the proper policies for institutionalizing of access to information? Answer: The public could have access to the accurate information while the reporters and journalists of Medias and other relevant organizations enjoy from the rights of access to information because they are delivering the information to public. To institutionalize this right firstly there is a need for a law in the country level, a law which contain and code this right and consequently all citizens and people particularly who are in the key positions of the government must be aware from this law. and they must understand clearly their obligations that the law binds them to not conceal information from media and public, this is the first step toward institutionalization of this right. Secondly depends to joint work of media and civil society efficient and sufficient public awareness programs to consolidate and aware the public to defend from their right which is having access to transparent information firstly and consequently do not allow…

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