UN / AFGHANISTAN HUMAN RIGHTS
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STORY: UN / AFGHANISTAN HUMAN RIGHTS
TRT: 02:20
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 OCTOBER 2022, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, exterior UN Headquarters
26 OCTOBER 2022, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press room dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan:
“Just let me begin and I'll only speak briefly I'm happy to take questions by sharing the sense of abandonment that Afghans continue to feel, especially Afghan women and girls. They didn't expect support in perpetuity from the international community, but nor did they expect to be dropped off a cliff 14 months ago.”
4. Wide shot, press room dais
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan:
“First of all, is the huge regression in the rights of women and girls. The reversal is probably unprecedented in history. It's in a way even greater than in 96, because of the gains that had been made over 20 years after the formation of the republic in 2001. It's a huge setback.”
6. Wide shot, press room dais
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan:
“That there's been huge clamp downs on media. There is a humanitarian crisis, and there's long standing impunity and lack of accountability. We should not forget that this is a country that has experienced more than four decades of conflict conflict, nor should we underestimate the damage that that conflict has wrought on the people and social fabric of the country.”
8. Wide shot, press room dais
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan:
“Speaking to Afghans, they really feel that the attention is much more in other places, and particularly Ukraine. They feel that they've been rather forgotten and abandoned since then. So I see it as part of my job to help put the spotlight back on Afghanistan. And not always to do the speaking for Afghans. I want Afghans to speak for themselves.”
10. Wide shot, end of presser
The Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, today (26 Oct) said,
Afghans “didn't expect support in perpetuity from the international community, but nor did they expect to be dropped off a cliff 14 months ago.”
Bennett, who came back last week from a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, said there is a “sense of abandonment that Afghans continue to feel, especially Afghan women and girls.”
He said there has been a “huge regression in the rights of women and girls,” a reversal that “is probably unprecedented in history.”
The Special Rapporteur said this reversal was “in a way even greater than in 96, because of the gains that had been made over 20 years after the formation of the republic in 2001.”
He also said, “there's been huge clamp downs on media. There is a humanitarian crisis, and there's long standing impunity and lack of accountability. We should not forget that this is a country that has experienced more than four decades of conflict conflict, nor should we underestimate the damage that that conflict has wrought on the people and social fabric of the country.”
Bennett said that during his country visit, “speaking to Afghans, they really feel that the attention is much more in other places, and particularly Ukraine. They feel that they've been rather forgotten and abandoned since then. So I see it as part of my job to help put the spotlight back on Afghanistan. And not always to do the speaking for Afghans. I want Afghans to speak for themselves.”
The Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with mandates to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.