Strategic Capacity building is one of the major components of CSHRN’s programs

Like other social and governmental bodies, the civil society of Afghanistan also needs strategic capacity building. Most of the civil institutions are operating through their daily plans. This caused the programs to remain without any target and strategic background. On the other hand, this shortage has challenged the convergence among the civil society institutions. That's why training and capacity building has been emphasized and expressed as its important working outcome in relation to its strategic find outs by the civil society and human rights network of Afghanistan. Based on this program, the civil society and human rights network of Afghanistan offered educational manual of strategic planning. A working group composed of strategic experts who worked about one year on this educational manual and finally completed it with the support of the international experts especially the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). Civil society institutions can organize and implement their strategic programs according to this educational manual. The manual is mainly focused on strategic background, vision and the key components of the strategic management. This education manual will play an important role in developing and improving the executive programs of civil society institutions. Based on this educational manual, CSHRN has conducted educational programs of «training the trainers» in all over the country. During this educational program, trainers of CSHRN's member organizations in 24 provinces have been instructed and acquired these guidelines in a systematic way. Under this program, the human rights Summer School in relation to strategic planning for civil society institutions was held in Kabul. Human rights trainers from other provinces were invited in this educational school in order to share their find outs and experiences with each others, and discuss the ways and approaches of improving and using the educational manual. The participants of the school have…

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International Humanitarian Law Promotion in the Framework of CSHRN’s activities

International Humanitarian Law includes states commitments for securing war victims, supporting prisoners of war, serving the war victims and states obligations in reducing civilian casualties. The international humanitarian law has been defined & interpreted in the four conventions of Geneva 1949. These conventions have been approved by the United Nations under universal general rights. Hence, all states parties of the United Nations are obliged to include the provisions of these conventions in their national laws and accordingly form some structures and mechanisms for applying the international humanitarian law in their political and social lives. These conventions are very crucial for states still in conflicts and war. Afghanistan is a country where the international military forces are widely operating. The military forces of nearly 40 countries are here to fight against the international terrorism. During the last 12 years, we were witnessed of huge civilian causalities in which women and children were the main victims. With regret that civilian causalities became one of the main challenges during military operations in Afghanistan . In order to promote the culture of responsibility among the national and international military forces, it's very crucial and important to generalize the international humanitarian law. Developing and promoting the international humanitarian law was one of the main programs of the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan (CSHRN) in its 4 th phase and has therefore conducted some constructive dialogues among the civil society institutions. Based on these dialogues, civil society institutions requested CSHRN to initiate capacity building programs regarding the humanitarian law for its member organizations. According to this proposal, CSHRN's secretariat has conducted some joint meeting with its member organizations during which a working group of Afghan experts for preparing the first draft of the educational manual regarding the international humanitarian law was…

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The Educational Spring School on International Human Rights Mechanisms

As a member of the international community, Afghanistan has some great responsibilities and commitments in respect with human rights. The UN charter requests its member states to apply human rights values through international human rights conventions. Based on this precious substance, the international law and relations of the governments have been developed. The modern governments have considered the human rights values as their working agenda and apart of their foreign policy. The Afghan government had joined seven international conventions. These conventions include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on economical, Social & Cultural Rights, the International Convention against Torture, the International Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, International Convention for the Protection of Children's Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the International Convention for the protection of the disabled and handicapped. Based on these conventions the Committees of overseeing the implementation of the international conventions had been established that ask the member states for a systematic report. Afghanistan has experienced various regimes, during the last four decades. During these regimes, as apolitical tool, human rights have been abused and their commitments on accountability and transparency against the international community have not been done. After the collapse of the Taliban regime, opportunities have been provided for more commitments of the Afghan government toward the international human rights mechanisms. Human Rights have been officially recognized as an important component on the national norms by the new constitution of Afghanistan. Human Right and its relevant international conventions changed into a legal resource and the Afghan government was obliged to provide human rights reports. Monitoring the human rights situation is one the crucial procedures for promoting human rights values. Monitoring paves the way for identifying human rights violations…

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CSHRN Executive Director’s Report (2011-2012) to the 7th General Assembly of the network

First of all, I would like to welcome everyone to this significant session and I'm pleased of conducting the 7th general assembly of the Civil Society & Human Rights Network of Afghanistan. CSHRN has organized its activities based on the legitimate and effective strategy adopted by the member organizations of the network, and initiated extensive programs across the country. CSHRN's programs have provided a very good image for the civil society and its role in promoting human rights values in the country. CSHRN has become one of the most important umbrella organizations in the field of advocacy and human rights values by planning and implementing transparent, effective and valuable programs. Constructive relations with the international community, national institutions and human rights activists demonstrate this principle. During the last two years, CSHRN has focused its activities on the following fields: 1-  Capacity building on human rights concepts and values CSHRN has changed into an important source of learning human rights concepts by supplying and publishing the educational manuals of human rights. These educational manuals clarify the guidelines and concepts of conducting educational programs for civil society and government institutions. Some groups of instructors are being formed based on these manuals that provide the way of educating the member organizations of the network in the capital Kabul and other provinces of Afghanistan . We have provided and published three important and significant educational manuals, during the last two years. The first educational manual had been prepared by the name of «Educational manual of transitional justice», that is the first educational manual regarding transitional justice and its related issues in Afghanistan , which was released in 5000 versions. The second handbook is «educational manual of international human rights mechanisms». This manual, evaluates the UN mechanisms on human rights and also observe…

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CSHRO develops the educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights

The Civil Society and Human Rights Organisation (CSHRO) organizes its educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights. Afghanistan State as member state of the United Nation has ratified several international human rights conventions. Its important that the state of Afghanistan deliver periodic reports of the human rights situation to the UN system based on the requirements of these conventions. The same time the civil society response to the international human rights convention is also dependence on the state report to the international human rights structures. The CSHRO works to provide an educational manual on the international mechanism of human rights for the civil society actors, Afghan state institutions and human rights activists. The manual will be produced during upcoming one year. Based on the strategy of CSHRO on May 24 th a consultative gathering of CSHRO member organizations will discus the structure and methodology of the manual. During the gathering a working group of Afghan civil society experts will be designed. The working group will work in collaboration of Danish Institute for Human Rights experts to develop the first draft of educational manual. The DIHR experts will provide international experiences to the working group. The CSHRO Executive Secretariat facilitates the activities of working group. The working group shares the first draft of the manual to member organistions and some national experts to enhance the quality of the manual. The final draft of the manual will be presented to member organizations during the second consultative gathering on January 2013. The second gathering of CSHRO will approve the manual. The manual will be printed by CSHRO. A team of trainers will be trained by CSHRO in order to train manual in Kabul and provinces of Afghanistan . The international mechanism of human rights manual will be disseminated to…

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Awareness rising is one of the main components of CSHRO forth phase

During the last thirty years Afghanistan has experienced wide-base human rights violation. The different political regimes misused the human rights values for their political agenda. In the same time the warlords and military and political groups have violated fundamental human rights principles in Afghanistan. During the last thirty years the military and political parties straggled against each other to capture the political power in Afghanistan . During this period of time around two million Afghans have been killed and around two million Afghans have become disabled. According to CSHRO studies lack of information in the political structure and lack of awareness of human rights values among the Afghan population is one of the main reasons of human rights violation in the country. According to CSHRO analyses the main aspect of human rights violations have been recorded in the field of civil rights. Torture, political prosecution, limitation of freedom of speech, restriction of freedom of association and lack of freedom of media have been considered as the main area of violations of human rights during this period of time. After the Taliban regime the new Afghan constitution grantees the human rights values equally to all citizens of Afghanistan . Based on the new Afghan constitutional support the civil society institutions were established in post Taliban period in Afghanistan . CSHRO organized itself in 2004. During this period CSHRN has been mainly engaged in the fields of coordination amongst civil society, capacity building of its member organizations, advocacy and promotion of human rights. According to CSHRN, awareness rising about human rights values is one of the most important elements for promotion and protection of human rights. Therefore CSHRN General Assembly has decided to encourage all member organizations to become more active in the field of public awareness about human rights…

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The fourth phase of the network, a substantial step toward establishment of a human rights movement in Afghanistan through well-functioning civil society

The third phase of Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN) is completed successfully in January 2011 and the network kept on its endeavors by bridging the lessons learned of third phase to the objectives of fourth phase of the network. Precisely eight years ago, the CSHRN established itself as a coordination entity for local human rights based organizations. CSHRN establishment was the result of 2002 up to 2004 constructive and substantial dialogues of human rights defenders and activists in Afghanistan. The CSHRN started its activities in August 2004 by the support of Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). DIHR as a well-known international human rights institution has supported the CSHRN in the field of institutional and thematic capacity building. This support has enabled the CSHRN to establish democratic structures and increase its human rights knowledge and play its role for strengthening human rights values. The CSHRN convened its first general assembly in Kabul city in presence of representatives of 25 local civil society organizations. In the first two years all the activities of the CSHRN were being limited merely to the Kabul city. But these activities have facilitated cooperation and collaboration among different civil society and human rights organizations. It is worth mentioning that in these years the only supporter of the CSHRN was the Royal State of Denmark international support mechanism (DANIDA). In 2005 the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) Joined DANIDA and thereafter SDC has a great contribution in attaining the aim of the CSHRN. SDC has supported CSHRN in the field of developing pool of training materials. The network by receiving the support of Swiss State has developed the human rights educational manual. Through this program CSHRN conducted systematic human rights trainings in Afghanistan. In the run of recent eight years, CSHRN…

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The civil society representatives have met with the President of Federal Republic of Germany

On October -16th -2011 his Excellency Christian Wulff the President of Federal Republic of Germany met with representatives of Afghan civil society umbrella organizations in the Chair of the AIHRC in German Embassy in Kabul city. During the meeting Mr. Michael Steiner the Especial Representatives of Afghanistan and Pakistan affaires, Mr. Rudiger Konig the Ambassador of German Federal Republic and Mr. Shoayab Azam the Councilor of the Political Affaires of Germen embassy were part of German delegation. Dr. Sima Samar Chairwomen of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), Mr. Mohammad Naim Nazari the Executive Coordinator of Civil Society and Human Rights Network (CSHRN), Mis Samira Hamidi Chair women of Afghan Women Network (AWN), Mr. Azizi Rafee Director of Afghanistan Civil Society Forum (ACSF) and Said Rahim Satar the Deputy of Afghanistan NGOs Coordination Bureau ANCB represented Afghan civil society in the meeting. During the meeting the representative of civil society of Afghanistan informed the German delegation about challenges, strength and threats of the civil society institutions. The Afghan civil society also explained the role of civil society in strengthening of legitimate and democratic state in Afghanistan. During the meeting, representatives of civil society appreciated the role of German Federal Government in reconstruction of Afghanistan and its support to civil society in promotion of human rights and democratic values in Afghanistan. President Wulff on behalf of German people and state expressed his support to the Afghan people and the Afghan civil society. He said that the people of Germany will continue to support Afghan people after 2014 when the international military forces leave Afghanistan. President Christian Wulff pays an official visit to Afghanistan to meet with President Hamid Karzai and the German military forces in Afghanistan.

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Summary description of The Civil Society Human Rights Network (CSHRO)

The Civil Society and Human Rights Organisation (until 2011 the Civil Society and Human Rights Network) was founded in 2004 by 25 civil society and human rights organisations. Today CSHRO is organised as a nationwide network consisting of 92 member organisations, a Secretariat in Kabul and four regional centres. CSHRO has since its inception in 2004 had a close and fruitful partnership with the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). Throughout DIHR and the Afghan civil society collaboration in the last 8 years the network has received the technical and organizational competence to organize constructive dialogue with the Afghan state on political, economic, social and cultural issues. During this period the network developed itself to a dynamic collaborator with the international partners in the fields of human rights. The network representatives actively participate to different national and international events in and out of the country to convey the message of civil society and human rights activist to the rest of the world. Vision and Mission CSHRO firmly believe that Afghanistan can become a society based on democracy and the rule of law in accor ­ dance with human rights. This belief has become the networks vision so accordingly, CSHRO expect the Afghan society to become a nation, based on democracy and the rule of law in accordance with human rights, and a society, where the state regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion and social and political orientation provide equal opportunities for all, and where people are aware of their rights and claim them in safety and dignity In order to work towards the realization of this ambitious task, the mission of CSHRO is to establish a capable human rights movement through strengthening of rights based civil society and by promoting human rights values, monitoring the human rights situation and…

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CSHRO Strategic Seminar conducted

By: Wazir Ahmad Khorami On March 12 th the strategic seminar of CSHRO was conducted in Kabul city, during the seminar representatives of member organizations together with the CSHRO secretariat discussed how to bring strategic changes into future activities of the Network. The strategic seminar was facilitated by Mr. Francesco Paolo Simone Castellani, adviser at the Danish Institute of Human Rights. At the beginning of the seminar Mr. Malek Sitez, Head of CSHRO's programs in Afghanistan, explained the importance of strategic planning and regularly updating of CSHRO's strategy to the participants. The aim of updating the strategy is to involve and include all member organizations into the CSHRO activities. The participants of the strategic seminar discussed the current strategy in comparison with the current situation in Afghanistan . The participants of the seminar were divided in four working groups where each working group discussed the issues of the key result areas of the strategy (capacity building, coordination and advocacy). During a one hour discussion, participants of the seminar discussed the main challenges of CSHRO in the field of coordination, capacity building and advocacy. The representatives of the working groups presented their ideas about the key result areas on behalf of their working group. The results of the working group discussion are very useful and constructive for future activities of CSHRO. As a result or the discussion two additional key result areas were proposed to be included in the strategy of CSHRO, these were “Public awareness” and “Monitoring”. Participants of the seminar agreed on collaboration of the member organizations in the field of monitoring the human rights situation as well as the dissemination of information on human rights issues to the people of Afghanistan. Participants of the seminar strongly advised CSHRO to focus on monitoring the human rights situation…

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