Negotiating Human Rights in the Afghan Context

The Open Society Institute Middle East & North Africa Initiative hosted a panel discussion, "Negotiating Human Rights in the Afghan Context."

Human rights advocates in Afghanistan must navigate a careful balance when promoting global human rights standards in a conservative Muslim society recovering from decades of conflict and extremism. Those charged with protecting human rights in Afghanistan must work in a context where Taliban and militia forces are resurgent, a powerful constituency of hardline conservatives support strict and narrow interpretations of Islamic law, and American-led forces continue to resist the application of international legal standards to their own detainees. A local court’s recent decision to levy the death penalty against a journalist accused of blasphemy further highlights the challenges of implementing human rights in Afghanistan today.