The Human Rights Watch in a statement on Thursday claimed that the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ignored human rights concerns and detainees’ torture at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week.    

President Ashraf Ghani promoted his country’s bid to join the UN Human Rights Council but he did not mention anything about human rights concerns in the country including civilian casualties from the ongoing war in parts of Afghanistan, the rights watchdog said in the statement.  

“While welcoming the Trump administration’s ramped-up military strategy in Afghanistan, Ghani said nothing about the rising number of civilian casualties from the fighting. Nor did he discuss human rights concerns his own government has failed to address,” the rights watchdog said in a statement on Thursday.

The Human Rights Watch says Ghani didn’t seem to recognize that the purpose of the Human Rights Council is to promote the protection of human rights throughout the world, not to shield its members from criticism.

Ghani’s pitch for a Human Rights Council seat was undermined by his government’s poor performance before the UN Committee against Torture in April, the rights organizations said. 

According to the rights watchdog, President Ghani’s government has failed to address human rights concerns and to prevent ‘torture of detainees’.