Human rights in Afghanistan still a persistent concern

The U.S. State Department’s annual global survey of human rights practices was released yesterday, and Afghanistan, despite receiving millions in U.S. aid for human rights and democracy programs, failed to live up to expectations in 2006, the Associated Press reported today.

When presenting the report yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Too often in the past year we received painful reminders that human rights, though self-evident, are not self-enforcing.”

It is believed that there have been small improvements on human rights issues in the last year, but Afghanistan is still experiencing persistent, “politically motivated or extrajudicial killings by the government or its agents,” the State Department report said. Additionally, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government is still not living up to established demands regarding the protection of basic human rights.

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