Your house is not yours, dont insist other wise you will be jailed and tortured

 

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission is deeply Concern of the situation of prisons, presence of private jails, arbitrary detention and increasing human rights violation in Afghanistan.

 AIHRC investigated and registered 634 cases of violations since June 2003, this number compressed of:

        Extrajudicial killing

        Rape and trafficking of women and children

        Occupation and destruction of public and private properties and houses

        Arbitrary detention

The biggest part of these violations is destruction of houses and land property occupation, and forced selling of properties. The AIHRC investigated and registered around 300 violations of arbitrary house destruction and property occupation since June 2003.

 One of the serious incidents in forced destruction of houses is the destruction of Mr. Kajal Khans houses on August 03, in Shah Tot village in Tangy Saidan district of Kabul. Mr. Kajal Khans house was destroyed by Soldiers belongs to Commander Shir Alam [the former commander of the central army corps (Qul-e- Ordo)], while the Security Chief of Char Asiab district accompanying them. Mr. Kajals children and family was due to have their lunch when the soldiers start destroying their house.

 According to the victims those who had hands in his house destruction were among thefts that a month ago tried to rob my house. AIHRCs researchers didnt found any legal reason for evacuation of the house. The house was located 20 Km far from governments project. There was no city development plan to allow government to confiscate the property.

 Forty five houses in Ghochak village, 160 houses in Jowa-i- Haft and a number of houses in Surckh Road, Qala-e- Naw and Omar Khil areas of Nangarhar province have been destroyed by authorities in there during the last months. During the forced excessive eviction of the civilians, they were badly beaten and some of them are taken in to custody and have been tortured while they were arrested.

 More then 30 houses were destroyed by Chief of security of Kabul police in the Shirpoor hill, a number of civilians were badly beaten, women and children were injured and two children were trapped under the demolished houses. Fortunately the children pulled out safely.

 This incident widely and strongly condemned by AIHRC and UN. The municipality promised AIHRC that they will stop eviction of the people in shirpoor area unless they are being provided plots and to find a justified solution for this crises.

 The AIHRC investigators registered another forced evacuation in the same area three days after the first incident. Mrs. Farakhs house that is legally registered with the court and has the legal document from municipally according to the master plan of the city, have been destroyed by police and municipally and she forced to evacuate her house.

 While she have legal document issued by court (Qabala Sharai) that shows she owns the property according to master plan of the city. Her plot was given to minister Shaker Kargar.

 According to Mr. Hidayati the deputy mayor of Kabul municipality the people in Shirpoor is residing for more then 20 years. There was an accord that instead, these people will get plot in other parts of the city. But these promises have never happened.

Mr. Hedayati stated that We cant do any thing; we are servant and have to obey the higher authoritys orders. For places like Shirpoor the orders have issued such as without formal procedure a plot have to be distributed to Mr. immediately said a deputy mayor of Kabul of municipality.

 The AIHRCs finding shows that the plots promised to the victims in Ahmad Shah Baba project near Pul-e-Charkhi, from one hand was not a justified replacement according to law and from another hand according to the Kabul municipality officials, there is no plot left in Ahmad Shah Baba project to be distributed to the people of Shirpoor.

 The municipality and higher level officials who are involved in force evacuation of the people in Shirpoor Hill, without putting in consideration of law and regulation for confiscation of lands and by ignoring all national and international principles, in a very aggressive way violated the rights of civilians in Shirpoor hill. List of those high level official who got plots in ShirPoor

 The legal procedure has been ignored in this process and there was not respect for the rights of the people. The lands in Shirpoor Hill distributed to the very high level officials and their relatives and an uncompleted list of those who have received the plots in Shirpoor, shows that most of the cabinet members have received plots in Shirpoor hill.

 The AIHRC have registered cases of torture and detention of the property, house and land owners around the country. According to the executives of penal code of Afghanistan, detention of any side of case in property disputes is not allowed unless it is combined with a crime.

 While the AIHRC findings show that majority of detainees in Kabul and provinces, are detained/kept in detention because of their property disputes. The local authorities mainly police and governors are arbitrary detaining those sides of a property dispute who dont have money to pay the bribe or doesnt have any relation with the authorities. As an example: The AIHRC has investigated a case of torture against Mr. Sawab Gul a student of grade 8 of school along with his father Tor Gul and one member of his family Wazir Gul. They were detained after a property dispute in Azar district of Logar province on August 2003.

Zabit Rasool the security chief of Azra district arbitrary detained these people and at the same night he along with his soldiers tortured them very badly.  

 The issue became public in Azer and created public reaction. The student of the school where Sawab Gul is studying run a demonstration which in result the zabit Rasool ordered the police to beat the students and injured more then 10 students. Sawab Gull is suffering from bleeding that is resulted by the torture for more then 20 days.

 Occupation of state property:

Occupation and selling of the lands and property of the state by warlords and other governmental authorities has become a common issue against public interest. The AIHRC believes that this is an obvious violation of rights to housing of those Afghans who are in need of housing.

 The AIHRC monitored and investigated several numbers of such cases:

Forced evacuation of the people from commercial market in Gulayee Mahtab Qala by the son of Ayatulla Fazel the former Wadat party member of Akbary branch. That area is property of ministry of Defense (31 Army Corps). The shops in this market have been rented from MoD since last 20 years.

The followings people are involved in use of excessive force evacuation of Mahtab Qala area:

1. Mr. Amir Padsha of  31 army corps

2. Mr. Zakir Commander of 31 Army corps

3. Mr. Ali Gauhar head of police for district six

The green area near to the 120 bedded hospital in Khir Khana, have given to Mr. Abdul Bashir, who is a close relative of MoD and is a very reach person, by the order of MoD through the Kabul municipality.

4. The residence of the Qala-e- Wahid area who recently reconstructed their house that were destroyed by civil war during 1992 to 1995 are deeply concerned of the ultimatum they have received by municipality for evacuation of the area. In the mean time these people have not been allotted other plots/pieces of land and even have not been promised that they will be the first people to get plots instead of loosing their shelter. According to the information we have received the municipality already started promising and making contracts with some of the powerful and reach personalities in Kabul city.

The AIHRC is very much concern that the Shirpoor incidents should not happened again.

5. The AIHRC have investigated number of cases of people who were forced to sell their property. Civilians/people who have houses in good locations of the city are forced by powerful authorities/officials to sell their houses. These cases have been investigated in Shahri Naw, Wazir Akbar Khan Mina and Kartai Parwan of Kabul.

AIHRC recommendation in order to improve the situations:

1. The right to adequate housing is one of the fundamental rights of all citizens. The state has to fulfill its obligation regarding rights to adequate housing and has to respect this right.

2. Confiscation of the lands is not allowed unless its proved to be for the public interest and there should be land distributed to those who are being affected and their lands confiscated.

3. To resolve the crises of the housing, land and property related issues in the country; the Judicial Commission should draft a law on housing, land and property related issues. Courts will then be able to deal with property crises according to the housing, land and property LAW.  

4. The land and housing disputes are being solved by the special court of property, which is a one level court. The AIHRC identified that most of the violation are due to this systematic problems. Here by the AIHRC recommending the increase of in the level of the special property courts to primary, appeal and high court.

5. The forced selling of houses and land cases should taken as crime and should be investigate by police and those who are forcing civilians to sell there property should be punished by court.

 
 
Copyright 2002-2005 Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission  All Rights Reserved.

Contact Us | for any query regarding to this Website please e-mail Webmaster Rohullah Abed