About AHRC

Dr. Sima Samar

A renowned Afghan physician and human-rights advocate. In 1989 she founded the Shuhada Organization, building hospitals, clinics, and schools for Afghans and refugees with a focus on women and girls. She served as Afghanistan's first Minister of Women's Affairs and as a Deputy Chair (Vice-Chair) of the Afghan Interim Administration, and was the founding Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission from 2002 to 2019. Internationally she served as UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan and on the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. She is a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award and other major honours, and she chairs the AHRC board.

Mohammad Farid Hamidi

Served as the Attorney General of Afghanistan and led the reformation of the Afghan justice sector. A member of the AIHRC and the Emergency Loya Jirga, he also headed the advisory board to the President of Afghanistan on political appointments, ensuring human-rights compliance. He is the Deputy Chair of AHRC.

Mohammad Musa Mahmodi

A renowned human-rights lawyer from Afghanistan who served as Executive Director of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission for over ten years. A 2020 Yale World Fellow and research fellow in law at Yale Law School, he is the Executive Director of AHRC, managing its programs, activities, human resources, and budget.

Photo: ITU Pictures / C. Montesano · CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)

Dr. Suraya Dalil

Dr Suraya Dalil brings a unique blend of health policy and diplomacy to her work, grounded in a lifelong commitment to human rights, social justice, and accountability. Over more than 30 years, her career has spanned frontline primary care, health system leadership, public policy, parliamentary engagement, and multilateral diplomacy. Dr Dalil holds a medical degree from Kabul Medical University (1991) and a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (2005). As Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Health from 2010 to 2014, she led political and operational reforms that significantly expanded access to health services and improved the quality of care nationwide. From 2015 to 2019, she served as Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and Ambassador to Switzerland, where she was lead author of Afghanistan’s voluntary pledges for UN Human Rights Council membership and headed the country’s delegation to the 2019 Universal Periodic Review. From 2020 to 2025, she served as Director of the WHO Special Programme for Primary Health Care at WHO Headquarters, where she helped position primary health care as a core programmatic priority, led the documentation of country implementation experiences, oversaw the design of a primary health care leadership course for senior government executives, and supported the establishment of the Global Coalition on Primary Health Care secretariat. Her earlier work with UNICEF in Afghanistan and Somalia shaped her enduring commitment to equity, service, and measurable impact. Dr Dalil is a proud mother of three daughters, whose curiosity and strength continue to inspire her resolve and resilience.

Photo: Stephan Röhl / Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung · CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and resized)

Dr. Soraya Rahim Sobhrang

A medical doctor by training, human-rights advocate and activist from Herat, Afghanistan. She studied medicine at Kabul University, trained in management, women's rights, gender and psychology in Germany, and also studied political science and international relations in Kabul. After the Bonn conference she served as Technical and Political Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Women's Affairs. In 2005 she joined the women's rights protection and development unit of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) as an adviser, and in January 2006 she was selected as a Commissioner, responsible for protecting and developing women's rights. Her work emphasised eliminating all forms of violence against women, improving access to justice and the judicial system, and building institutions and networks that advocate for women's rights. In 2010 she received the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.