Don't Call the Police in Afghanistan

Unless you want crimes to be committed against you. Human Rights Watch has the scoop on how the Afghan Local Police program has helped create a police force that has mostly just contributed to lawlessness.

A September 2011 Human Rights Watch report, “Just Don’t Call it a Militia: Impunity, Militias, and the ‘Afghan Local Police,’” detailed abuses by the ALP and various militias created or supported by the US since the defeat of Taliban rule in 2001. The report, while acknowledging that ALP units had contributed recently to improved security in some areas, documented serious abuses by ALP and other US-backed forces in several provinces, including looting, illegal detention, beatings, killings, sexual assault, and extortion. The report also described how the establishment of the ALP had inflamed ethnic tensions in some areas.