Youths & Human Rights Summit and celebration of the 11th anniversary of AELSO
The Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) celebrated its 11th anniversary and the international human rights day through organizing Youths & Human rights Summit on December 10th, 2020 in Kabul.
In this half day summit, AELSO’s founders and executive board members, representatives of the Independent Human Rights Commission and the International Committee of the Red Cross, youths, university professors and students, civil and human rights activists, cultural and social activists came together and talked about the human rights, its origin in the world, Afghan government’s commitments toward ensuring human rights in the country, and youth’s responsibility in promoting human rights values in the country.
In the beginning of the summit, Muhammad Khalid Ramizy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO), talked about the achievements the organization proudly reached in its first decade of operations, particularly the main triumphs AELSO could attain in its 11th year of establishment.
Mr. Ramizy said:
“As the result of organizing various conferences, symposiums and discourses in different provinces of the country including the capital Kabul; so far we have covered more than 5238 individuals and equipped them with the intellectual capacities to stand and fight against extremism and fundamentalism in the country. The online programs of the Silk Road Radio Station of this organization have more than 600000 listeners. More than 1400 volumes of various books and 2000 CDs have been distributed by the organization. These CDs and Books contain huge academic and practical materials for the youths in order to motivate and inspire them to work independently for better promotion of the values of peace, liberty, mutual acceptance and prosperity, have been distributed by this organization”.
During its 11 years of operation, the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) has signed various memorandums of cooperation with many academic institutions such as the Kabul University, Bakhtar University, Rana University, Tolo Aftab University, Donya University, and The White Assembly as well as Azim Publications. Based on these agreements, we successfully organized many conferences and programs having their direct cooperation’s, the result of which have been published through the research booklet written by the AELSO and printed by the Azim Publications.
We are proud to say that AELSO has been recognized as one of the leading think tanks in Asia by the University of Pennsylvania for the two consecutive years, and we are more delighted to share that in 2020, the organization won the Smit Students Outreach award. The credit of these remarkable achievements belongs to the hardworking done by our team of professionals, volunteers’ commitments, donor’s supports and to all our beneficiaries and participants of our different programs.In 2021 we are planning to direct our efforts and resources toward translating books which are of highly academic values into Pashto and Uzbek languages. In addition, expanding our activities to remote areas of the country and reaching the isolated and abandoned communities through our publications and programs, are going to be our top priorities in 2021.
Following the meeting, Professor Mohammad Abul Ahrar Ramizpoor, Founder of the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO), while speaking about the important role AELSO has been playing in promoting free society values as well as the compatibility of these values with the holy religion of Islam, said:
The 11th anniversary of the AELSO overlaps with the ratification of the universal declaration of human rights and victims’ day in Afghanistan. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a universally recognized assertion that connects human beings around the values of human rights.
The purpose of founding AELSO is to come together around a common axis for eliminating inequalities and different types of discrimination. We cannot build this on the axis of religion, but we can on the axis of humanity. Free society, with its capacity for intellectual diversity and pluralism, has made it easier to unify the communities and make them work together on human basis.
The Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) belongs to everyone who believes in the power of free-thinking and enlightenment. AELSO’s claim and work is enlightenment for intellectuality without any political interests. AELSO also promotes free thinking among youths, rationalism in the context of human rights, and rationalism in the context of religious values in its accordance with the teachings of the holy religion of Islam.
AELSO’s main efforts is to prevent the instrumental use of religion through promoting enlightenment and to save young people from falling into the abyss of extremism by nurturing them intellectually with the values of tolerance, prosperity, peace, friendship and self-confidence.
Considering the conditions of the Afghan society, 2021 will be a transitional and challenging year for the AELSO. Consensus, mutual acceptance, resistance to the promotion of human values, advocacy and furthering our activities; are the solutions for overcoming these challenges and facilitating the transitional process.
Rahman Ali Javed, Senior Human Rights Education Advisor of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) spoke about the human rights situation in Afghanistan and said:
“By adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the world demonstrated its respect for the humanity and human values.” Ensuring human rights promotes and develops human societies. Freedom from fear, freedom from poverty and unemployment are the ideals of the human rights. Challenges such as insecurity, corruption, low awareness, poverty and unemployment … have created a dire human rights situation in Afghanistan. Considering the main duties and responsibilities of the Independent Human Rights Commission, which are monitoring, protection and development of human rights; we have attained valuable achievements and made remarkable progress for promoting the values we do care and the goals we are working toward.
The closure of more than 52 private and illegal prisons, the improvement of the human rights situation in prisons, the release of dozens of innocent people from the country’s prisons, and the inclusion of human rights issues in the curriculum are a few examples of our committeeman toward accountability.
Following Mr. Javed; Yarm Mohammad Yari, Senior Legal Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross, spoke on human dignity in times of war and peace, and added: The inclusion of human rights in war has occurred as a result of the aftermath of World War I and II which is referred to as international humanitarian human rights, and all sides of war are obliged to respect the human rights values defined in wartime while ignoring human rights, especially human dignity in wartime, is counted a war crime.
Continuing the summit, Mr. Najibullah Sulaimankhil recalled the achievements of the AELSO during its 11th year of operation and said:
“AELSO in its mission for 2021 is paying more attention on ground researches and surveys, translation of books, organizing symposiums and discourses. We are trying to form Afghan Volunteer’s Network (AVN) with having the university students as the center and leading part of the network. Besides that, we are in constant communication with concerned authorities in order to consider volunteer services done by youths as work experience for them so they will not face any challenges while applying for jobs.
At the end of the summit, the guests, organization’s officials and all the participants celebrated the 11th anniversary of the Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) by cutting the cake and time for networking and knowing each other. The Summit ended with a beautiful play by the Theater Group of the Ambassadors of Equality on the subject of women’s status in traditional perspective and its change toward modern practice.
The Afghanistan Economic and Legal Studies Organization (AELSO) owes its eleven years of productive and influential activity to the full support of national and international partners. Therefore, the Board of Directors and the executive officials of this organization express their hearty appreciation and gratitude to all international supporters as well as national partners of the AELSO for their continuous support and commitment.
Together we can enlighten the society!
Publications and Public Relations Department of @AELSO