3. Biodata:
Abdul Malik Azimi is a local civil society activist in Sar-e-Pul. ‘Malek’ Azemi is the son of a Sarepul governor from the times of the Karmal regime (1979-1986, then it was still a district, not a province). Dostum protected many former PDPA/Watan Party cadres when he held the Afghan north, until 1998, against the Taleban regime.

Azimi  is linked to serveral protests against Governor Rahmatii who is a 2010 appointed ethnic Hazara. The initial protests were rather spontaneous, and it were mainly Uzbeks who joined them. Then, Azemi (locally also called ‘Malek’) assumed a more prominent role. He rejects the notion that he belongs to or is supported by any particular faction. He claims that the governor provoked hatred against government institutions by his refusal to call his relatives to justice and that he, in a larger gathering, had insulted the province’s inhabitants as ‘thieves, pickpockets and prostitutes’.

But ‘Malek’ also seems to harbour a personal grudge against governor: Over the past years, he had worked in several positions in the province’s administration, including as mayor of Sarepol town, and then applied for the post of director of the governor’s office but was weeded out by Rahmati from the candidates short-list.