#afghan refugee crisis

[chaiaurchaandni]

on mass deportations of afghan refugees in pakistan

pls watch this video, its not exhaustive and ur encouraged to reserach more but this is a v good intro to the afghan refugee crisis in pakistan right now.

not many people are talking about this but this is a gross human rights violation. according to pakistan's citizenship laws, people born on pakistani soil are automatically eligible for citizenship and parents/spouses of pakistani citizens are also eligible for citizenship. however, these laws have not been extended to afghan refugees. now these refugees are being deported to afghanistan, even tho many of them have never been to aghanistan. theyre literally being sent to camps on the pak-afghan border and forced to take classes on how to evade landmines. the police is also targeting and brutalizing documented afghan refugees. any success and wealth that afghan refugees accumulated has been in spite of the bigotry of most of the pakistani population and in spite of the shitty pakistani government. these civilians are in no way a strain on pakistan's economy, neither do they pose a security threat. theyre just being used by the pakistani establishment as a political pawn to get back at the taliban govt in afghanistan and to appease the pakistani population in the wake of intense economic and political instability. the conditons in afghanistan are already horrible and the vid touched upon that. afg has suffered some major earthqakes that have killed thousands of people, in addition to the sanctions + ofc the fact that the country is trying to rebuild after almost half a centruy of violent conflict

also want to point out how sick this is considering that pakistan benefitted a lot from the wars in afghanistan (against the soviets and against the taliban as well) bec of US aid and then bec of aid that was given to pakistan to cater to afghan refugees (ofc this aid almost never made it to the people who needed it - pakistan has p much no welfare programmes for the refugees) and pakistanis are often discriminatory/racist against afghan refugees. the afghan people have suffered a lot due to pakistan's greed and now theyre suffering once again. pakistanis are literally using similar rhetoric thats used against pakistani immgrants abroad (that theyre illegal aliens, that theyre illiterate regressive extremists, that theyre rapists and criminals)

[octarineblues]

For UK citizens or residents:

please sign! the deadline is 18th April.

[nando161mando]

Tensions come to a head with a proposal to limit the entrance of children of war refugees who are already in the Netherlands and to make families wait at least two years before they can be united.

[head-post]

More than 2,000 Afghan migrants returned from Iran in 24 hours

The Taliban-led Ministry of Refugees released figures that 2,123 migrants returned to Afghanistan on Monday, 4 December.

According to the Ministry, those migrants were either deported or returned voluntarily, having entered the country through the border town of Islam Qala in Herat.

As of 3 December, 1,860 Afghan migrants had returned through the same border town of Islam Qala in Herat.

This steady flow of returning Afghan immigrants follows a pattern observed over the past week, with an average of at least 2,000 Afghan migrants returning from Iran to Afghanistan per day. This movement indicates a continuing change in the dynamics of migration between the two countries.

Learn more HERE

[thesecrettimes]

Afghans Are Facing Another Crisis Abroad: The Refugee Crisis

When the Taliban took over, he lost his job. For several months he searched for a new job, but he couldn’t find one. He says that compared to the previous months which there were hundreds of jobs per day, it was only 3 to 4 jobs a day. Thus, he faced a lot of economic problems, not being able to support himself or his family. He says that he could find a job, but they offered him only 5000 AFN per month which wouldn’t even cover the taxi or bus fare for a month.  Ahmad tried several times to leave the country. The university and the organizations he worked for promised to evacuate him, but it didn’t happen. He says that “they just left us behind or they selected students based on their preferences.”  “The availability of a job is another problem. Here they are not going to hire you if you don't know their language. Even in the free job market or the street job, one needs to have basic language proficiency” says Ahmad. Ahmad says that he hopes the international community helps those inside Afghanistan and those who have left Afghanistan either legally or illegally, particularly those who left illegally face an even harder situation. They left for Pakistan five days after the Taliban took over. They had to stay additional four nights in Kandahar, a southern province of Afghanistan that shares routes with Quetta, Pakistan through the Spin-Buldak border. Refugees are afraid not to be caught by police officers in Pakistan. One of his friends was arrested by police. Police ask refugees where they are from and if Afghan, they ask for money. If they don’t give them money, the police will arrest them without any legal reason. He says that the international community already knows what is happening inside Afghanistan. They should act. He was trying to leave the country but due to the chaos at the Kabul airport, he couldn’t. He states that “after the evacuation was completed, I was pessimistic.” The organizations that he worked for, promised him support but didn’t do anything practical. He had an India visa, but it was invalidated online. When in Pakistan, he says that “in one year’s, time, I only had one initial interview and nothing else. No email, no support, no protection. I sent hundreds of emails until I got my case. After a year and after a lot of follow-ups and a lot of documentation and providing a lot of evidence we were evacuated to the UK last week.”             Alizai says that “Afghanistan from the last 40 years was forgotten. The international community should really consider the situation of Afghanistan and its people, otherwise, the land may become a ground for international terrorism and drug – something that will be out of their control tomorrow. They should realize this reality and act as soon as possible.”   By: Susan Azizi Read the full article

[stackslip]

In 2020, Uma Mirkhail got a firsthand demonstration of how damaging a bad translation can be. A crisis translator specializing in Afghan languages, Mirkhail was working with a Pashto-speaking refugee who had fled Afghanistan. A U.S. court had denied the refugee’s asylum bid because her written application didn’t match the story told in the initial interviews. In the interviews, the refugee had first maintained that she’d made it through one particular event alone, but the written statement seemed to reference other people with her at the time — a discrepancy large enough for a judge to reject her asylum claim. After Mirkhail went over the documents, she saw what had gone wrong: An automated translation tool had swapped the “I” pronouns in the woman’s statement to “we.” (...) Whether automated or not, translation flubs in Pashto and Dari have become commonplace. As recently as early April, the German Embassy to Afghanistan posted a tweet in Pashto decrying the Taliban’s ban on women working. The tweet was quickly ridiculed by native speakers, with some quote tweets claiming that not a single sentence was legible. “Kindly please don’t insult our language. Thousands [of] Pashtun are living in Germany but still they don’t hire an expert for Pashto,” posted one user, researcher Afzal Zarghoni. The German Embassy later deleted the tweet. Seemingly trivial translation errors can sometimes lead to harmful distortions when drafting asylum applications.

[apricitystudies]

what i read in mar. 2023:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

crime of the centuries

from a massacre in apartheid south africa to 'feel good' multiculturalism: the dark history of harmony day (australia)

the prison industry corporate database (usa)

how australia wrote the 'stop the boats' playbook

the crisis of the intellectuals

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

‘i know where the bodies are buried’ (uk)

is it too late for male friendship?

all true at once

of an age: a tender portrait of young queer love in 90s suburban melbourne

inside the secret working group that helped push anti-trans laws across the country (usa)

politics & current affairs

‘what was the point?’: freed after 9 years, refugees learn to live again (australia)

on the trail of the fentanyl king

the mercy workers

emboldened by israel’s far right, jewish settlers fan the flames of chaos

sas unit repeatedly killed afghan detainees (uk)

in australia, slot machines are everywhere. so is gambling addiction

history, culture, & media

the disabled villain

the lesser known history of the maralinga nuclear tests (australia)

a murder in berlin

baghdad memories: what the first few months of the us occupation felt like to an iraqi

will the ozempic era change how we think about being fat and being thin?

violent delights

at the kremlin in 1943

[reasonsforhope]

Last Wednesday [October 18], WBEZ (91.5 FM) reported that a civic leader of St. Louis visited the Chicago Mayor’s Office to discuss a program whereby migrants from Venezuela could be brought to the Gateway to the West in order to ease the migrant crisis gripping the Windy City just as winter temperatures arrive.

It’s estimated that 20,000 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, have arrived in Chicago this year, and finding them places to stay has been challenging.

The WBEZ report details that St. Louis is currently in a decline of population and employees, and some in the city believe the migrants and the city would be better off long-term if they moved there.

The International Institute of St. Louis announced the new Latino Outreach Program last month with the aim of both attracting and accommodating migrants arriving from Latin America.

Karlos Ramirez, vice president of Latino Outreach for the International Institute, told WBEZ the as-yet unconfirmed agreement “could be the potential for a great relationship between both cities,” adding that “if the [migrants] are going to be in a better place, St. Louis is going to be in a better place, and Chicago is going to be in a better place, I think everybody wins.”

Ramirez says that any next step would have to include sharing details and practices between Latino Outreach and its partners with their counterparts in Chicago.

Fox News 2 reached out to the St. Louis Mayor’s Office for comment, and the representative shared a statement released previously in response to the WBEZ report.

“While the City has not had direct conversations on welcoming more migrants from Chicago, the City of St. Louis has had a longstanding cooperative relationship with the International Institute to welcome immigrants and refugees to the St. Louis area.”

Other migrant welcome programs in the city, such as the Arch Grants program, saw great success in Afghans fleeing the country in August of 2021, and the International Institute modeled its efforts for Latino Outreach on this success.

-via Good News Network, November 6, 2023. Video via Fox 2 St. Louis, October 20, 2023. Note: Fox local affiliate networks are not the same as Fox News, and many are editorially independent/not The Actual Worst.

Note: If you're in St. Louis, you can check out the International Institute of St. Louis to get involved or call your local representatives to support!

[mariacallous]

In its latest assault on basic freedoms, Afghanistan has banned women and girls from speaking in public. It marks a new low in the Taliban-led government’s enforced gender apartheid.

Promises that girls and women would be allowed to study and work were broken shortly after the Taliban returned to power. The group banned girls from going to school beyond sixth grade and outlawed them from pursuing higher education at university. It even prohibited them from taking a stroll in the park or going to the gym, and from nearly all professions that could earn them a living and a semblance of independence and dignity.

And yet even as Afghan women are kept prisoner in their homes and denied basic rights, neither the Islamic nations in the region nor the United States have taken an active interest in compelling the group to reverse its misogynistic policies.

The new rules were announced in the middle of the presidential campaign in the United States, but both candidates kept mum on the issue of women’s rights, even though each of their respective governments knowingly left Afghan women to a fate that was hardly unexpected.

When Kamala Harris and Donald Trump faced off in a debate last week, Afghanistan was raised only in the context of the domestic ramifications of American withdrawal. No mention was made of what happened to Afghans left behind. Neither candidate said a word about how the U.S. exited without securing any guarantees from the Taliban on the future of women and their rights.

The Taliban, firmly in control, brushed off all of its atrocities on Afghan women and violation of their very basic rights as “Afghan values’’ in a conversation with Foreign Policy. Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said the group was open for engagement with the West, but on economic issues only.

“They can invest in minerals,’’ he told FP. “China, Russia, all have business ties with us, the West can also do that. It is good for them and good for us.’’

“Women’s rights and those things are up to us, and we will determine them according to Afghan values and traditions,’’ he added, as if speaking and reading were matters of Afghan sovereignty and not basic human rights.

Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights activist who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the circumstances the Afghan girls and women find themselves in.

“When they were discussing the agreement in Doha, we were not even given the visa to come to Qatar because we would have asked questions, we would have confronted the Taliban, but that could have scuttled the deal and the Trump administration didn’t want that,’’ she told FP over the phone.

“Biden may not have had enough room to change the deal, but that was not the reason he stuck with it,’’ she said. The Biden administration “wanted to get out.’’

The key tenet of the U.S. policy on Afghanistan has been security and containing the threat that terrorist groups based there can pose to Western countries. The Doha agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban, which led to the U.S. exit, called on the Taliban “to prevent the use of Afghan soil by any international terrorist groups or individuals against the security of the United States and its allies.’’

But even the word “women’’ is missing from it. A post-withdrawal concern has been that a deteriorating humanitarian situation could exacerbate the refugee crisis, particularly in Europe.

In order to address these concerns, and heed calls by humanitarian actors, the U.S. agreed to ease some sanctions and infuse Afghanistan with billions in cash. That helped Afghans, but it also kept the Taliban afloat and emboldened it to carry on as it pleased.

“Since August 2021, the U.N. has purchased, transported, and transferred at least $2.9 billion to Afghanistan using international donor contributions,’’ according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in January. It added that the U.S. is the largest donor, with $2.6 billion of that sum contributed by the American taxpayer.

While throwing money at the problem has somewhat mitigated a humanitarian crisis, it has also kept the Taliban in power and allowed it to maintain a support base. The report said that the Taliban has accumulated, “a large supply of U.S. dollars, through the conversion process of dollars for afghanis.’’

Some Afghan analysts argued that stopping the cash flow will weaken the Taliban, reduce its acceptability, and ideally encourage an anti-Taliban uprising. Or, at the very least, force them to make some concessions.

22-year-old Miryam, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, pleaded that the West, and especially the U.S., “should stop sending money to the Taliban.’’ Her education was cut short when the Taliban took over in 2021, she can’t wear what she wants, or do anything professionally, or step out of the house.

“Don’t recognize the Taliban,’’ she said from Kabul in her message to the international community, “put pressure on them to at least give women the right to work and study.’’

Davood Moradian, founder and the director-general of the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) now based in London, argued in favor of slashing the aid. “America is the main source of Afghan currency,’’ he told FP. “The moment the U.S. stopped funding, the Taliban will face a serious challenge,’’ to its rule, he added.

Others said if the Taliban didn’t break under 20 years of American presence, they wouldn’t abandon their hardcore ideology now, due to a cash crunch. Seraj, the women’s rights activist, advocated a diametrically different approach and said that the West should instead open the floodgates of developmental aid in a way that upward mobility emboldens the Afghan people to rebel against Taliban’s excesses and fight for women’s rights.

“You can’t even use the word women with them,’’ she said. “You have to come up with things like more investments and business deals and let that create the right conditions.’’

Thus far, the U.S. has threatened the Taliban with a global boycott if it doesn’t grant women their rights. But efforts ostracize the group from the international community are a farce since China, Russia, Pakistan, Qatar and several others continue to engage the group for economic and security reasons.

The truth is there hasn’t been an active U.S. policy to try and bring about a change or help the women of Afghanistan since the U.S. retreated. The policy has been outsourced to the U.N., which is engaging the group, often on the terms set by the Taliban. For instance, in July the U.N. organized Doha III, a dialogue platform to engage the Taliban and various stakeholders on the future of Afghanistan. But to appease the Taliban and make sure they attended, not a single women’s rights activist was invited.

One idea, way short of full recognition, could be to bring together a coalition of Islamic nations to challenge the Taliban’s understanding of Shariah and compel the group to let women and girls study and work, just as they can in other Islamic countries.

In April, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called on the Taliban’s deputy chief minister Abdul Kabir to end the ban on education and employment for women and girls. Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that preventing education for girls is “inhumane and un-Islamic.” Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a prominent political advisor in the United Arab Emirates, told FP that an Emirati delegation visited Kabul to discuss women’s rights. “There are so many trends in Islam, some more moderate, others more extreme. The Taliban, they are following a very backward ideology,” he said.

But Afghan women’s rights activists say that the condemnations from fellow Islamic countries appear to be more perfunctory and unserious. It could carry weight if it was a cohesive regional policy pushed by the U.S. as one of the pillars of its Afghanistan strategy. The Taliban, after all, is carrying out its oppression in the name of Islam.

Shaheen, the Taliban spokesperson, seemed to make some room for concessions when he told FP that the decision on education and employment for girls and women was pending, and subject to a report by an Afghan “committee.”

As for the next American president, ignoring Afghanistan would be at their own peril. Caging women in their homes and denying them basic rights represents a pattern of the Taliban reneging on promises—and it’s easy to imagine that extending to foreign policy.

“They are all there, all there,’’ Seraj, the activist, said. “ISIS-KP, Al Qaeda, other terrorist groups, they are all there. They are all getting training. Don’t think nothing is happening. The American intelligence knows what’s going on.”

[avizou]

Pakistan is in the process of deporting 1.7 million Afghan refugees.

At least 60% of them are children born and raised in Pakistan, as Afghans have been seeking refuge within their southern neighbour's borders since the 1970s. Harrassment by Pakistani law enforcement has increased to unprecedented levels as they have started raiding refugee camps. People are held at newly constructed detention centers without transparency or access to legal representation.

Afghans are now being forced to return to a country ruled by a group that doesn't grant women equal rights and is aiming to establish a gender-apartheid state. Ethnic and religious minorities continue to suffer state-sanctioned violence. Among these refugees, journalists, former government employees and ISAF collaborators will all have to fear for their lives upon return.

Additionally, Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian crisis. Higher grain prices, an on-going draught and continued international sanctions are currently putting 20 million people at risk of a famine. Just recently, several magnitude 6 earthquakes killed over 3,000 and injured over 10,000 in the Western province Herat.

[nando161mando]

"Braverman denying asylum seekers £3 a week payment for healthy food for children under 3 and pregnant women, found to be unlawful"

Seeing as Cruella's been found to be breaking UK Law AGAIN, when's she going to deport herself to Rwanda? 🤔

If she's conflicted over the rules she enthusiastically enforces on others, I'll buy her a commercial one way ticket to Kigali International Airport myself... 🤷🏾‍♂️"

[dzthenerd490]

News Post

Palestine

‘Missing in action’: Where has Palestinian Authority been since October 7? | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

From exodus to exodus: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon flee Israeli attacks | International | EL PAÍS English (elpais.com)

Tributes pour in for Palestinian student burned to death in Israeli attack on al-Aqsa Hospital | Middle East Eye

The Israeli ‘General’s Plan’ for northern Gaza is unlikely to succeed | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera

US imposes sanctions on 'sham charity' fundraising for Palestinian terror group | The Times of Israel (Israel-US Propaganda Bullshit)

Sudan

Sudan war: Afcon 2025 qualifying wins bring 'pride and joy' to country - BBC Sport

Sudanese army claims gains in Khartoum, retakes key water station - Sudan Tribune

Spiraling Sudan bloodshed sparks refugee surge into Chad (voanews.com)

Sudan war: 'They ransacked my home and left my town in ruins' (bbc.com)

Ukraine

Zelenskyy says ‘victory plan’ to end Russia war includes NATO membership | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

Ukraine says North Korea is sending soldiers to help Russia in the war : NPR

Ukraine war: Meet Bucha's female unit who gun down Russian drones (bbc.com)

Exclusive: Inside a secretive Ukraine drone unit targeting Russian territory | CNN

Record high deaths in the Russia-Ukraine war: What you should know | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

Lebanon

Lebanon official says Nabatiyeh province's mayor killed in Israeli strike | AP News

Israel row with Unifil peacekeepers driven by long distrust (bbc.com)

Netanyahu wants UNIFIL out of Lebanon. Why? | Israel attacks Lebanon News | Al Jazeera

Other

Taliban-run media stops showing images of living beings in some Afghan provinces | AP News

Afghan Triples: Hundreds of ex-special forces to be allowed in UK (bbc.com)

Congo cancels an auction for 27 sites earmarked for oil exploration | AP News

ICC prosecutor announces renewed probe into alleged crimes in eastern Congo | Africanews

Congo's war is creating a mental health crisis for those in displacement camps near Goma | AP News

Saudi Arabia, Egypt strengthen investment ties, urge Gaza and Lebanon Ceasefires | Africanews

Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia Counter Ethiopia in New Alliance (foreignpolicy.com)

A rare rain in the Sahara Desert | Weather News | Al Jazeera

Flooding kills more than 20 people in Morocco and Algeria | AP News

Myanmar and China have world’s ‘worst environment’ for internet freedom | Internet News | Al Jazeera

Israeli-Palestinian conflict – Rafah – Mother Jones

[frithwontdie]

As Predicted, Congress Looking To Legalize Biden Afghan Parole Amnesty