The Foundation convened an interdisciplinary panel on the record of crimes committed against Afghanistan’s Hazara minority population.
On 12 June, the Max Planck Foundation hosted a diverse group of specialists on the past and present of violence afflicting Afghanistan’s Hazara population. The invited speakers contributed valuable insights into the factual and legal dimensions on the Hazara’s plight.
Dr Niamatullah Ibrahimi mapped the historical trajectory of the Hazaras’ discriminatory treatment from the foundations of modern Afghanistan to the present day. Contributions by Foundation staff and Mehdi Hakimi laid out the laws and facts, applying the applicable international legal framework on genocide and crimes against humanity to established patterns of egregious violence. With a view to the complexities of effective accountability, Dr Farkhondeh Akbari highlighted the unique impacts of the crisis on the lives of Hazara women and examined the domestic potential for its attenuation.
The speakers’ contributions prompted lively discussion with the viewers, spanning a broad range of issues, from the legal and political ramifications and the involvement of international courts and tribunals to discursive shifts and perspectives for protecting Hazara life inside Afghanistan in the future.
The symposium formed part of a series hosted by the Afghanistan Legal Research Network at the Max Planck Foundation and is part of the project ‘Civil Society and the Rule of Law in Afghanistan’ funded by the German Foreign Office.