Nothing like the Pakistani gov expelling Afghan refugees en masse back to a despotic country in the wake of a devastating earthquake and on the eve of an upcoming winter. All because of attacks on Pakistan from groups linked to said despotic regime that had been at the very least tacitly supported by the Pakistani gov.

Oh.. and a potential update to this (which has been coming as there are tensions between Iran and Afghanistan):

If you're wondering how to help Afghans, and discouraged by the fact that it'd be near impossible to convince these countries otherwise, International Rescue Foundation is probably the most practical source.

Otherwise, if you're American and in a blue/swing district, pressure your rep to push for the Afghan Adjustment Act and similar measures to help refugees get here and be supported. And even if you're in an area where appeals will fall on deaf ears due to racism/nativism/Islamophobia, there are refugee orgs nearby you can get involved with.

If you're not American, there are probably equivalent things that could be done.

“America likes to tell a certain story about itself: It’s a safe haven, a place of refuge for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It’s a story that history shows hasn’t always been true. But thankfully, it just got easier for Americans to take matters into their own hands and turn that aspiration into a reality.

The Biden administration on January 19 launched the Welcome Corps, a new program that will allow groups of Americans to directly sponsor refugees to resettle in their communities.

Whereas recent programs have focused on bringing over people from specific places — Afghanistan, Ukraine, Venezuela — this program makes it possible for private citizens to resettle people from any place in the world, so long as they are refugees as defined by the US Refugee Act.

Under the Welcome Corps program, you and a few of your friends can pool together funds to provide an immigration pathway that allows vulnerable people who may not otherwise be able to immigrate the ability to rebuild their lives in the US. Forming a private sponsor group involves bringing together at least five adults in your area and collectively raising $2,275 for each person you want to resettle in your community. With that money, sponsors commit to helping them through the first three months there, which can include securing and furnishing housing, stocking the pantry with food, supporting job hunts, and registering kids for school.

It’s a powerful way to improve life for the newcomers, granting them protection from persecution or violence in their country of origin, plus the chance to access health care, education, and socioeconomic opportunities. It can also improve life for everyone who’ll be in the newcomers’ orbit, including you and your neighbors. Research suggests welcoming refugees will likely benefit your community as a whole, for example by opening new businesses that revitalize neighborhoods. In Canada, a similar private sponsorship program has proven immensely popular and successful over the past decade.

But you might be thinking: Why should it fall to private citizens to fork over the cash, time, and energy to resettle refugees? Shouldn’t that be the government’s job?

...It’s a fair point: This is the government’s job. That’s why the advocacy groups that pushed for the Welcome Corps program insisted that any refugees who come to the US via private sponsorship should be in addition to the number of traditional, government-assisted resettlement cases.

The State Department has signaled that it agrees. This means that by sponsoring a refugee, you can play a role in allowing the US to take in more refugees overall. It really is additive.

And unlike prior programs for Afghans or Ukrainians, which were temporary, ad hoc responses to crises, the Welcome Corps is intended to be a permanent fixture. The hope is that it’ll complement the traditional resettlement process, which has been struggling for years.”

-via Vox, 1/27/23

Afghan refugee boys wrapped themselves in blankets to keep warm in the evening, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2012 - by Muhammed Muheisen (1981), Jordanian

A former Canadian language and culture adviser who served NATO in Afghanistan filed a lawsuit at the end of July alleging the government has not allowed his family in Afghanistan to seek refuge in Canada.

That followed a case filed in May by two other former language and culture advisers who served in the Canadian military. They similarly accuse the government of insisting their families don’t qualify for programs bringing Afghan refugees to Canada.

They all accuse the government of offering advantages to Ukrainians that were not offered to Afghans hoping to escape the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Thousands of Afghans who were promised U.S. visas remain on the run from the Taliban. The Biden administration, however, quickly cleared red tape for Ukrainians after Russia invaded Ukraine.

While the Biden administration has claimed to welcome refugees from both Afghanistan and Ukraine, the process for people fleeing the two countries has been unequal. To gain temporary entry to the United States, more than 66,000 Afghans applied through a process called humanitarian parole. But the hurdles for Afghans are huge, including monthslong wait times, piles of paperwork and a steep cost ($575 per person). In contrast, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States created a special humanitarian parole process for Ukrainians caught in the conflict – it can be filed online and has no application fee. Government records reveal that only 123 Afghan humanitarian parole applicants have been approved, compared with 68,000 Ukrainian applicants.

—America’s Racist Double Standard

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.

Afghans flee Pakistan en masse: “We’d live here our whole life if they didn’t send us back”

Pakistan is set to begin forcibly removing 1.7 million migrants, many of them Afghans who fled the Taliban, Sky News reports.

Thousands of Afghans are fleeing Pakistan ahead of the government’s Wednesday deadline for undocumented or unregistered foreign nationals to leave the country.

Last month, Pakistan’s interim government threatened to round up, detain and deport those who do not leave the country voluntarily. Islamabad blames Afghan migrants for a surge in armed attacks, mainly in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the southwestern province of Balochistan on the border with Afghanistan.

Learn more HERE

[...] I informed Saboor and offered to drive him and Pari to Kabul. I will never fully understand why he chose to instead walk his daughter from Shadbagh. Or why he allowed Abdullah to come along. Perhaps he was clinging to what little time he had left with his daughter. Perhaps he sought a measure of penance in the hardship of the journey. Or perhaps it was Saboor's pride, and he would not ride in the car of the man who was buying his daughter. But, in the end, there they were, the three of them, coated in dust, waiting, as agreed, near the mosque.

And The Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini (x)

leave a little kindness (x)

If you live anywhere, but particularly the UK right now:

If you are a refugee, you are welcome on my blog.

If you are trans, you are welcome on my blog.

If you are struggling with the cost of living, you are welcome on my blog.

It frustrates me that there is so little I can do. This country is becoming a dictatorship. In class, we're studying Nazi Germany, and every so often people just go quiet. The camps refugees are being kept aren't even pretending not to be concentration camps. Trans people are being targeted more and more. People are going cold and hungry. This country is being torn apart. The tories need to go, and they need to go NOW, before they can destroy more lives that they deem unworthy. This country is becoming a dictatorship, but it's being hidden. Not enough people are saying it. You are welcome here, on my blog, in my country, even if others have made you unwelcome, and if there is anything I can do that might be able to help you, please let me know.

talibans ban on music

music is an important part of many peoples lives, including mine. but how would it feel if you were apart of the many people who can no longer listen to music in afganistan because of the talibans ban on music? it’s been illegal since 1990 for radios and tv stations to stream music, according to rferl.org. the reasoning for this is because music supposedly corrupts the people of afganistan and creates bad influences on those who listen to music on a daily basis. if caught listening or creating music (through instruments, etc) you could get beaten or jailed as punishment.

Limbo (Ben Sharrock - 2020)

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)