Upholding the Right to Protest in Afghanistan

Afghans are increasingly exercising their right to stage peaceful protests, according to speakers at recent IWPR debates held in four provinces.

Article 36 of the Afghan constitution guarantees citizens the right to stage demonstrations “for legitimate and peaceful purposes”, but public meetings are sometimes broken up violently by police, or hijacked by armed men.

At one debate held in the western Herat province, speakers argued that public meetings made officials pay attention to the wishes of local people.

Ali Jan Fasihi, spokesman for Herat’s civil society network, said local government now heeded “the voice of demonstrations” and launched reforms in response.

Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, representing the police in Herat, said his colleagues had improved their crowd control methods by identifying potential threats in advance and differentiating between legitimate protestors and anyone planning to use the event to create chaos, for instance to loot local shops as had happened in the past.

“The police are now more experienced and they handle demonstrators differently from before. Ahead of every demonstration, we send officers from the police intelligence department into the area to identify anything suspicious,” Ahmadi said.

Habibullah, a civil society activist in the northeastern Kunduz province, said demonstrations could be deliberately hijacked.

“Sometimes people with weapons join the demonstrators and shift the protest away from its peaceful purpose,” he said. “The consequences are unacceptable, both for the police and for private citizens.”

In Samangan in northern Afghanistan, the governor's spokesman, Mohammad Sediq Azizi, said that last year a protestor had been killed and ten others injured during a march in the city of Aybak.

“People chanted slogans against the government in that demonstration, demanding its removal, and the governor's bodyguards opened fire at them,” he said.

Nurrahman, representing the police force in Kabul province’s Khak-e Jabar district, argued that officers had to intervene if demonstrators broke the rules. Carrying weapons like knives and knuckledusters was not allowed, and protestors were banned from chanting slogans deemed to be blasphemous, immoral or otherwise unlawful.

“Whenever protestors break the law on demonstrations, or if they create chaos, they will face a tough reaction from the police,” he said.

An audience member at the same debate in Kabul province responded, “If holding demonstrations is a civil right of citizens in a democratic society, then why do the police sometimes beat demonstrators during protests?”

Khadija Hasani, head of the women’s affairs department for Samangan province, cited an example of how demonstrations could be a force for good. She recalled how women took to the streets last year to call for an official investigation after a local woman and two of her children were murdered.

Sher Ali, a member of the Kabul provincial council, said protests were a very effective means of direct action. As an example of this, he recalled a law passed by the Afghan parliament a year ago which reduced provincial council oversight of local government’s activities. In response, council representatives staged demonstrations and closed their offices all around Afghanistan. In February 2015, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani issued a decree requiring new legislation that would increase provincial council oversight.

“If we had remained silent, we wouldn’t have been able to get our rights back from the state,” Ali concluded.

This report is based on an ongoing series of debates conducted as part of IWPR’s Afghan Youth and Elections programme.