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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken praised women in Afghanistan and Iran for standing up for freedoms as he spoke Tuesday at an event highlighting the role of women in democracy.

Blinken praised women who have protested in Iran in response to the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini last year, saying they have courageously demonstrated under great threat to themselves, to call for woman, life, and freedom.

And in Afghanistan, Blinken said women are fighting for a better future in their country despite efforts by the Taliban to erase them from daily life.

The United States stands in solidarity with these women and all who are working for womens full, free, and equal participation around the world. Through our diplomacy, were committed to supporting them and advancing gender equality worldwide, Blinken said.

The top U.S. diplomat said women face these challenges not only in autocracies, but also in far too many places where they lack equal opportunities to study and work.

Women journalists, advocates, politicians, and others are subject to persistent online harassment and abuse. Women who are victims of violence often do not have equal access to justice. Women are subject to discrimination that often puts them at a disadvantage whether through double standards they face in the workplace, in access to reproductive rights, or in nationality laws, which can result in barriers to accessing education, health care, and property for themselves and for their families, Blinken said.

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Blinken Highlights Perseverance of Women in Afghanistan, Iran in Fighting for Rights - Voice of America - VOA News

Photograph Source: Petty Officer 1st Class John Collins Public Domain

Being the scapegoat of tribal lore cast out with the heavy weight of sins remains a popular political motif. Supposedly noble soldiers, by way of example, are punished for not adhering to the rules of war. In breaching the codes of killing and the protocols of acceptable murder, they are banished from a realm supposedly wrapped in law. In doing so, commanding officers, policy makers and politicians are left, purified, their dirt shed.

In the context of war crimes, the subordinate and the minion often take centre stage, heaped upon with sins like a tribal scapegoat and sent out into the metaphorical, prison wild. For the moment, such a figure is Australian Special Air Service trooper Oliver Jordan Schulz. That he is the sole figure so far is not going to impress the fair minded, though there may be others to follow.

In a joint statement between the Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian Federal Police, Schulz is alleged to have murdered an Afghan man during the course of his deployment in Afghanistan with the Australian Defence Force. He is being charged with one count of War Crime, specifically murder under the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). The ABC reports that the victim was Dad Mohammad, slain in May 2012 in central Uruzgan province as he lay helpless in a wheat field.

Speaking in the Downing Centre local court on March 28, magistrate Jennifer Atkinson made a number of remarks. The executed man was quiet and not resisting. Schulz turns towards the Afghan man and shoots towards him three times. The man appears to go limp after the first shot.

Mohammad, according to the allegations against the defendant, was not taking an active part in the hostilities. The defendant knew, or was reckless as to the factual circumstances establishing that the person was not taking an active part in the hostilities.

The OSI was established to pursue the findings of the 2020 Brereton Report, also known by its lengthier title as the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Forces Afghanistan Inquiry Report. Sharing joint responsibility with the AFP, the office is charged with investigating allegations of criminal offences under Australian law, arising from or related to any breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict, by members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in Afghanistan from 2005 and 2016.

The prosecution of Schulz is clearly designed to prevent the prying eyes from personnel based at the International Criminal Court. As a few legal authorities have written, It seems certain that Australia would not want ICC scrutiny of its conduct in Afghanistan nor the embarrassment of the ICC stepping in to prosecute Australian military personnel.

The prosecution is already attracting international attention. According to Human Rights Watch, it provides an important opportunity for authorities to uphold the rule of law by ensuring respect for the fair trial rights of the accused, including the presumption of innocence of any individual charged with criminal offense, and ensuring accountability for war crimes. It also sows the seeds of concern among the soldiers of other military forces deployed to Afghanistan during that same period.

The nagging worry here is that the military and political higher-ups are going to be given a convenient, well-oiled exoneration. Exonerated, the politicos and deskbound army wonks, who made critical decisions thousands of miles away, will be exempt, professing ignorance about the activities of a few bad apples in the Special Forces. Never mind why those apples were there in the first place.

The law will not necessarily be of much help here, beyond targeting the lower elements of foot soldiery. Doctrines of command responsibility require an adequate formulation of the guilty mind, otherwise known as mens rea. The pressing point in such a context is assessing what standard of knowledge is relevant: strict liability, constructive knowledge (that the commanders ought to have known about the crimes), or actual knowledge?

As Douglas Guilfoyle has observed, both the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and Australian law tend to exclude strict liability and actual knowledge, yet contain different formulations of what falls between. In a co-authored piece, Guilfoyle also notes that international law generally attaches liability to commanders who, given the circumstances, should have known crimes were being or had been committed.

The Brereton Report has done a remarkable disservice in shielding the chain of command in terms of operational awareness, and makes no mention of the political process that led to the deployment of such soldiers in Afghanistan in the first place. As the report improbably asserts, there was no evidence that there was knowledge of, or reckless indifference to, the commission of war crimes, on the part of commanders at troop/platoon, squadron/company or Task Group Headquarters level, let alone at higher levels such as Joint Operations Command, or Australian Defence Command. Nor was there any failure at any of those levels to take reasonable and practical steps that would have prevented or detected the commission of war crimes.

The practice of frequently rotating commanders above the patrol level in the Afghanistan theatre, and the nature of how information was compartmentalised, have served to ignore culpability for practices in the field of battle.

This is not to say that a number of senior officers are not concerned by what Schulzs trial promises. As The Australian reports, citing a military source, Individuals who were commanding the soldier, right up the chain of command for as high as the defence team can justify, should reasonably expect to be called into court. The defence team could then point to various chain-of-command deficiencies, among them the practice of repeatedly redeploying special service soldiers despite concerns about their state of mind.

Exposing such practices, and their source, would not only be fitting but just. We are otherwise faced with that convenient and all too regular spectacle: that of a soldier punished in isolation from the war machine that emboldened him to kill in the first place.

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Calculated Exoneration: Command Responsibility and War Crimes ... - CounterPunch

In deeply patriarchal and repressive societies like Afghanistan women have always been subjected to gender-based discrimination and violence. This was the case before the Taliban came to power but it has become much worse since and women, who were already underrepresented in the media industry, are suffering immeasurably.

The dwindling community of female journalists has reached a concerning level. Soon after the Talibans coup they started a crackdown on all journalists. There were raids on the houses of journalists, arrests, detentions, intimidation and harassment.

In addition to direct threats, the Taliban started to systematically harass women in the media to make it difficult for them to work. The Taliban introduced strict dress codes, including making the veil mandatory. The ban on long-distance travel of women without a male guardian has made field work for women impossible. Women have also been banned from appearing on TV shows. The Taliban effectively want us to completely disappear from the media landscape.

Due to these barbaric laws many women have lost their jobs and many have fled the country. Those women who were the sole earners in the family are now living in destitution.

The outflux of women with essential skills has created a brain drain in Afghanistan. Years of progress with regards to media development, women empowerment and capacity building of women in media has been undone by the Taliban in merely two years. All the women journalists who toiled for years and built up their skills despite the difficulties are now either confined to the home or in exile in miserable situations. Unfortunately some have lost their lives in attempts to seek shelter. A female senior Pashto journalist, Torpekai Amarkhel, drowned with her family in a boat sailing them to Italy just a few weeks ago.

Amarkhels asylum case for Australia was in process. But due to the long, arduous, slow and chaotic process of filling and requesting asylum or refugee status in developed countries, journalists in distress are opting for perilous and illegal means of immigration. Its a response coming from extreme desperation and frustration. Western countries must try to understand this and must make the visa process easy, fast and efficient.

Within Afghanistan, peoples desperation is being exploited for financial gain. Acquiring essential travel documents is being aggravated by long delays, tough requirements and chaotic procedures, which has meant the opening of illegal channels to mint more money from helpless people running for their lives. For example the average fees for a passport right now is at least $3000 and fees for a Pakistani visa is $1200. This makes the legal evacuation from Afghanistan for those journalists at risk almost impossible, forcing them to opt for illegal channels. For those taking this route the outcomes can be awful. In many instances people are arrested and detained in neighbouring countries.

In exile the Afghan journalists are unable to continue their journalistic work due to a myriad of issues, such as lack of opportunities in the countries of temporary residence, language barriers, legal barriers and discrimination against Afghans. The result? Women journalists in exile are either forced to stay at home or they are forced to do menial work to simply make end meets. Theyre out of work, gaps in their career growing. Some are now quitting the industry and switching careers.

The situation is stifling for male journalists too. The heart-wrenching stories of Afghan journalists are sadly countless. A journalist who worked alongside me in a media outlet recently posted on Twitter and other social media platforms about selling one of his kidneys to get some money to support himself and his family in exile in Pakistan. Another journalist from Afghanistan trashed all his academic and professional documents out of frustration at his joblessness and inability to get any humanitarian support. And another journalist, a senior one with a strong track record in the industry, has become a cobbler working in the streets.

In order to save the community of journalists in general, and women journalists in particular, the world must act. Western countries must open their doors so that we can access work, education and free speech and expression which we have been denied in our own country. But everyone can help protect Afghan journalists and create opportunities for them within Afghanistan and in exile. Engage with Afghan journalists through fellowships, scholarships, workshops, training and other opportunities to save the media from dying. And finally pressurise the Taliban to reverse their barbaric decisions that have created a gender-based apartheid and is pushing generations of Afghans back to the stone age.

Excerpt from:
The harsh reality for Afghanistan's journalists - Index on Censorship

More than eighteen months after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021, it is time to assess the level of threat deriving from the jihadist groups based in the country.

One should always bear in mind that all of these groups were present in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover and they have not expanded significantly since. All that changed is the regime in Kabul.

Even in terms of counter-terrorism, there are not many obvious changes, given that after the US withdrew the bulk of its forces in 2014, operations against jihadist groups have been limited to drone and air strikes and that the Afghan security forces were contributing little, absorbed as they were in a fight for survival against the Taliban.

After an apparent lull of a few months after the total withdrawal in the summer of 2021, US drones have reappeared on Afghanistans skies, in all likelihood following a basing agreement with Pakistan, even if the Pakistani authorities deny it. Indeed, it was at the end of July 2022 that finally, the US managed to nab Ayman al-Zawahiri with a drone strike in Kabul.

This report, therefore, is not merely about the threat represented by Afghanistan-based jihadist groups to European and Middle Eastern countries, but also about the level of that threat, compared to what it was before 15 August 2021.

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European Eye on Radicalization aims to publish a diversity of perspectives and as such does not endorse the opinions expressed by contributors. The views expressed in this article represent the author alone.

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Afghanistan Under the Taliban: The Global Jihadist Threat to Europe ... - European Eye on Radicalization

The plight of Afghan allies seeking asylum in the UK is a complex and pressing issue.

These individuals, including members of specialised units such as the Triples and the National Directorate of Security (NDS), as well as pilots, have played a crucial role in the UK mission in Afghanistan.

They have courageously fought alongside British soldiers against the Taliban, contributing significantly to counter-terrorism efforts, and engaging in actions such as targeting, eliminating, and capturing militants.

It is deeply concerning that the UK government has failed to provide safe and legal asylum routes for its Afghan allies, leaving them with no choice but to embark on dangerous, unauthorized journeys to reach the UK.

Consequently, the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme has seen a backlog of cases waiting for up to 18 months, with many direct employees of the UK armed forces and other allies facing rejection despite the genuine threats to their lives.

The recent news that an Afghan pilot, who honourably served the British and NATO mission in Afghanistan, faces potential deportation to Rwanda, a nation with a history of human rights violations, is a distressing development. The UK Home Offices decision has sparked outrage, and it is crucial for the UK government to recognize its responsibility to protect its Afghan allies.

I am scheduled to meet with Stephen Kinnock, the Labour shadow minister for immigration, to address the plight of Afghan allies and the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan. It is imperative for the UK government to uphold its moral duty to protect its allies by providing safe and legal pathways for them to seek asylum.

Afghan asylum cases should be handled with empathy and consideration, given the grave risks faced by former Afghan government employees and Nato allies at the hands of the Taliban. While the UK government participated in the September 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan, many Afghan allies were left behind.

In comparison to the USs evacuation of nearly 120,000 Afghans, the UK government has only evacuated around 20,000 individuals, including those with no direct or indirect affiliation with the UK mission in Afghanistan.

The UK government must rise to the occasion and offer a secure haven for its Afghan allies. Deporting them to countries with a history of human rights violations is not only morally reprehensible but also a violation of the governments obligation to protect those who served alongside British soldiers in Afghanistan.

It is crucial for the UK government to take swift action to fulfill its moral responsibility towards its Afghan allies.

Mohammad Rafi Hottak is an activist who previously worked as an interpreter for the British army in Afghanistan

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I was an interpreter for British troops in Afghanistan the way the government is treating allies is shameful - The Independent