ASIAN Journal of International Peace & Security (AJIPS)

State Terrorism and Human Rights Violations in Afghanistan: Post US Withdrawal Analysis

Aroosa Fatima — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article is built on the argument that the human right violations through state
terrorism are harbinger of civil war, with an objective of emphasizing to shift the focus
of academia on state terrorism in general, and particularly in Afghanistan. The massive
human rights violations carried out through state terrorism during previous Afghan
governments are contested but wildly accepted, suggests the correlation between state
terrorism, human rights abuse and civil war. The methods of state terrorism including
the mass killings, forced removal of opponents and ethnic-religious minorities,
displacement, forced disappearance, ban on freedom of speech, and suspension of
women’s rights, under current Afghan regime; combining with the feeble economy and
return of Afghan refugees is turning security situation of Afghanistan into a
catastrophe, which civil war can aggravate to the extreme and irreversible lengths. The
lacking focus of academia on state terrorism is affecting the international community’s
response to state based human rights abuses. Without classifying state terrorism as a
heinous crime, it is impossible to force the international community to take action
against this practice, safeguard fundamental rights and ensure peace.

Deep Culture and Political Shifts: Applying Causal Layered Analysis to Understand Pakistan's Post-2013 Authoritarian Turn

Adil Khan, Ahsan ur Rahim, Haider Nisar Swati — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This paper addresses Pakistan’s drift to authoritarianism after the 2013 General
Elections using Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) as lens to deconstruct the various layers
of political system. It looks at events, trends, institutions, policy, rhetoric/discourse,
and myth/metaphor to give a conceptual analysis of why this transition has finally
occurred and what cultural formations underpin it. The first level, the litany layer,
analyzes how people and the media evaluated the changes in the political landscape.
The second level, the systemic cause layer, discusses civil-military relations, judicial
involvement, elections, economic issues, and changes in laws and policies. Security,
nationalism, and governance within political discourses and how media and culture
continue to either reinforce or subvert such authoritarian discourses are scrutinized in
the discourse/worldview layer. The myth/metaphor layer examines archetypal cultural
narratives, which shape people’s actions in politics and their receptiveness to
authoritarianism. This way, numerous and interwoven strands, including civilizational
variables and political transitions, come to the fore.