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Afghanistan: Record High Civilian Casualties Make Returns Unjustifiable
The international community cannot abandon the Afghan people who have fled conflict and violence at a time when civilian casualties continue at record highs, Amnesty International said today, calling on governments to halt forced returns to Afghanistan.
According to UN figures just released, 1,692 people were killed in the first six months of 2018 - more than at any comparable period of time since records began being compiled a decade ago. Over that same period of time, 3,430 people were also injured.
WASHINGTON
The international community cannot abandon the Afghan people who have fled conflict and violence at a time when civilian casualties continue at record highs, Amnesty International said today, calling on governments to halt forced returns to Afghanistan.
According to UN figures just released, 1,692 people were killed in the first six months of 2018 - more than at any comparable period of time since records began being compiled a decade ago. Over that same period of time, 3,430 people were also injured.
"Given the numbers of people who continue to be killed and injured in Afghanistan, it is unconscionable to claim that the country is safe enough to send people back to. Callously diverting their eyes from the bloodshed, states that once pledged their support for the Afghan people are now putting their lives in immediate danger, in brazen violation of international law," said Omar Waraich, Deputy Director for South Asia at Amnesty International.
More than 10,000 people have been killed or injured each year in Afghanistan since 2014. There are fears that this year will lead to the same situation.
In recent years, forced returns have escalated in parallel, with tens of thousands forcibly returned from the EU, Turkey and other countries.
The case of Taibeh Abbasi
Despite the horrific situation on the ground in Afghanistan, the Norwegian authorities appear determined to proceed with the deportation of Taibeh Abbasi and her family.
Taibeh Abbasi is a 19-year-old woman with Afghan nationality, who has just graduated from high school in Norway. Days after she celebrated this achievement, the authorities rejected her appeal to stay. Taibeh has never been to Afghanistan, and fears for her own and her loved ones's safety. She dreams of continuing her studies and becoming a doctor.
Taibeh's family fled war-torn Afghanistan to seek sanctuary in Iran. There, they endured discrimination and eventually sought refuge in Norway.
"The Norwegian government cannot pretend that Afghanistan is safe. It strongly advises its own citizens against traveling to any part of the country, and the area around its own embassy in Kabul has been hit in attacks by armed groups. Is their desperation to look tough on migration such that they are prepared to crush a teenager's dreams and put her and her family in danger?" said Omar Waraich.
Along with Taibeh and her family, many other people in Norway are at risk of deportation to Afghanistan.
The suicide of a 23-year-old returnee
Another heart-breaking case is that of a 23-year-old Afghan who took his own life after Germany forced him to return this month.
The man, who has not been identified, was one of 69 Afghans who were forcibly returned by the German government on 4 July. Six days later, the man's body was found in a hotel arranged by the International Organization for Migration.
The news of the 69 people being forced to return was gleefully announced by the German Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, who remarked that the occasion fell on his 69th birthday.
"The comments by the German Interior Minister are sadly typical of the callous attitude that colours European indifference to Afghan suffering. For years, Germany said it was committed to the human rights of the Afghan people. Now, they are eager to score cheap political points by playing with people's lives," said Omar Waraich.
Thousands of returns from Turkey
Over recent months, the Turkish authorities have ruthlessly deported thousands of Afghans who made a long and hazardous journey to seek refuge in the country. Many of the people seeking asylum endured beatings, abuse, and exploitation along the way.
Since January, Turkey has forcibly returned thousands of Afghans. Turkey, which is home to the world's largest population of refugees, has started building a wall along its border with Iran to resist further arrivals.
In March 2016, the Turkish government signed an agreement with the European Union to keep people seeking safety from traveling further to Europe.
"Turkey has been a generous host to refugees fleeing conflict. It's sad to see it reduced to doing the dirty work of the European Union, acting as a border guard for hire, ruthlessly turning away people who have made the most desperate journeys. These returns will only tarnish an image it had worked so hard to build," said Omar Waraich.
This statement is available at: https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/afghanistan-record-high-civilian-casualties-make-returns-unjustifiable/
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Naming Oligarchy as Key Threat, Biden Channels Bernie Sanders in Farewell Address
Sanders responded that the outgoing president was "absolutely right," adding, "This is the defining issue of our time."
Jan 16, 2025
The farewell address that U.S. President Joe Biden delivered from the Oval Office late Wednesday featured a warning that's been central to progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders' messaging for decades—and particularly in the wake of the 2024 election.
"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead," Biden said, pointing to the "dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked."
"We see the consequences all across America," the president added.
Biden: "I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. That's the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape" pic.twitter.com/3JFO40udS3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 16, 2025
The crisis Biden belatedly identified predated his White House term and would have persisted even if his vice president, Kamala Harris, had defeated billionaire President-elect Donald Trump in November. In his Wednesday address, Biden made no reference to Sanders, who ran for president in 2016 and 2020 on a progressive platform challenging the power of entrenched wealth.
During Biden's four years in power, the wealthiest 0.1% of Americans saw their wealth grow by a staggering $6 trillion, and record federal lobbying by corporate interests—from Big Pharma to Big Tech to Big Oil—continued to derail or undermine even the most tepid reform efforts.
But Trump's victory, aided by more than a quarter of a billion dollars in campaign spending from the world's richest man—who also used his wealth to purchase one of the world's largest social media platforms—laid bare the decisive influence that present-day malefactors of great wealth have on American economic and political life.
"We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an NBC Newsappearance exactly one month before Biden's farewell address. "Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, had so much wealth and so much power. Never before has there been so much concentration of ownership, sector after sector."
"Never before in American history—and we better talk about this—have the people on top had so much political power," the senator added. "In this last election, in both parties, billionaires spent huge amounts of money to elect their candidates."
Bernie Sanders: "We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few people had so much wealth and so much power."
"In Russia, Putin has an oligarchy. We have an oligarchy here, too." pic.twitter.com/zBjf4O7khv
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) December 15, 2024
In a social media post early Thursday, Sanders thanked Biden for acknowledging the crisis of oligarchy.
"You were absolutely right," Sanders wrote. "This is the defining issue of our time."
Since his election win, Trump has moved to pack his incoming administration with lobbyists and other corporate cronies who stand to benefit from the president-elect's promised tax cuts and deregulatory blitz. Elon Musk, whose wealth has surged since Trump's reelection, has been tasked with leading an advisory commission designed to slash government spending.
The commission, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, is expected to use office space in the White House complex, spotlighting the extent to which the federal government and outside corporate forces are becoming increasingly intertwined.
At Trump's inauguration, American oligarchy will be on open display: The three richest men on the planet—Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—will be present.
During his speech Wednesday, Biden focused on the growing dominance of a handful of powerful U.S. tech companies and executives, many of whom—including Bezos and Zuckerberg—have pumped money into Trump's inaugural fund and signaled a desire to ally with an incoming president who has said he would let corporations buy their way around federal regulations.
"In his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us... about, and I quote, 'The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power,'" Biden said. "Six decades later, I'm equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well."
"The U.S. government is becoming an outright oligarchy, with billionaire business leaders gathering around the billionaire Trump."
The president's comments broadly echoed sentiments expressed by his antitrust chief, Jonathan Kanter, who said in his own farewell address in December that "plutocracy is its own kind of dictatorship" and sounded the alarm over corporate consolidation—something he and other Biden administration officials, including Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, worked to combat over the past four years.
But progressives weren't exactly eager to give Biden credit for using his going-out speech to zero in on a longstanding problem that continued to fester under his leadership, despite the efforts of Kanter, Khan, and others.
The term "oligarchy" was entirely absent from Biden's most prominent speeches over the past four years, including his much-touted remarks on the imperiled state of American democracy.
"One last, tired bid for relevance, as if the U.S. drift into oligarchy is some novel, profound observation he just made—not something he's ignored his whole meandering term's worth of mumbling about democracy or, indeed, the thing that explains his entire career and presidency," Jacobin's Branko Marcetic wrote in response to Biden's farewell speech.
David Moore, co-founder of the investigative outlet Sludge, noted that "when his presidential campaign was flagging in 2019, he embraced a super PAC led by fundraisers from private equity"—benefiting from the political power of corporate interests he decried at the tail-end of his White House term.
Nevertheless, as progressive commentator and radio host Thom Hartmann put it Wednesday, "Biden is right, we are facing a crisis of oligarchy."
In a column published just ahead of Biden's speech, Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan Robinson rejected the emerging narrative on the right that the Trump administration and its corporate allies are merely attempting to bring about "the liberation of the country from the shackles of woke oppression."
"The more important thing to pay attention to is the way that the U.S. government is becoming an outright oligarchy, with billionaire business leaders gathering around the billionaire Trump," Robinson wrote. "Linda McMahon will work to privatize the public school system. Vivek Ramaswamy will make sure his fellow fraudsters don't end up in prison. And you, the non-billionaire, will end up being screwed by those who present themselves as the champions of the people."
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Israeli Attacks Kill 70+ as Netanyahu Delays Cabinet Vote on Cease-Fire Deal
"Despite the jubilation of the population in Gaza as well as that of the families of hostages held by Hamas, there have already been signs that Netanyahu has no interest in a lasting cease-fire."
Jan 16, 2025
Israeli attacks have reportedly killed more than 70 people in the Gaza Strip in the hours since a multiphase cease-fire agreement was announced Wednesday, a deal that sparked cautious hope for an end to a 15-month U.S.-backed assault that has decimated the Palestinian enclave and created one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in modern history.
Israel's cabinet was expected to meet Thursday to approve the cease-fire and hostage-release deal, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement accusing Hamas of reneging "on parts of the agreement reached with the mediators and Israel in an effort to extort last-minute concessions."
"The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement," said Netanyahu, who is facing backlash from far-right groups and lawmakers over the deal.
Hamas rejected Netanyahu's claim that it is backing off the agreed-upon deal, with senior officials reiterating the group's commitment to the cease-fire in response to the Israeli prime minister.
"There is no basis for Netanyahu's allegations that the movement has backed down from the terms of the cease-fire agreement," said one Hamas official.
At a Wednesday press conference announcing the deal, Qatar's prime minister expressed hope that "the coming days will not see any military operations," with the cease-fire supposed to take effect on Sunday.
But those hopes were quickly dashed as Israeli forces continued their bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 73 people—including 20 children—and injuring hundreds more in attacks across the territory following news of the deal, which was a product of months of negotiations.
Al Jazeera reported that one of the Israeli attacks hit a school housing displaced people in Gaza City.
The deal's announcement, while welcomed by humanitarian groups and Palestinians displaced by Israeli bombing, was met with some trepidation given Netanyahu's insistence last month that Israeli forces "will return to fighting" once hostages are freed.
"There is no point in pretending otherwise," the prime minister said, "because returning to fighting is needed in order to complete the goals of the war."
Annelle Sheline, a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Wednesday that "despite the jubilation of the population in Gaza as well as that of the families of hostages held by Hamas, there have already been signs that Netanyahu has no interest in a lasting cease-fire."
Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), warned Wednesday that "there are many ways" the deal could fall apart.
"Netanyahu has reportedly assured his right-wing ministers that he will resume the war after phase I 'until Hamas' defeat,'" Duss noted. "If, as another Israeli report claims, [U.S. President-elect Donald] Trump has secretly offered support for more settlements in the West Bank in exchange for Netanyahu backing the Gaza cease-fire, a return to large-scale violence against West Bank Palestinians (as opposed to the smaller-scale violence that they endure every day) is simply a question of when, not if."
"So long as the Palestinian people live under occupation, and the Israeli government steadily consolidates that occupation as a single undemocratic state, neither Israelis nor Palestinians will ever know the security and peace that both peoples desire and deserve," Duss added. "The path toward both will require a level of vision and courage that is currently in very short supply."
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Rights and Relief Groups Welcome 'Long Overdue' Gaza Cease-Fire Deal
"Continued pressure is needed to ensure the terms of the deal are followed and push for a long-term political solution that brings an end to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid in Palestine," said one group.
Jan 15, 2025
While welcoming government mediators' Wednesday announcement that Hamas and Israel agreed to release captives and cease fighting in the Gaza Strip, human rights advocates, humanitarian groups, and United Nations leaders also renewed calls for accountability and an influx of aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The three-phase agreement—negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations—comes after a 15-month, U.S.-backed Israeli assault that has killed at least 46,707 people in Gaza and injured 110,265. Experts warn the true death toll since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack is likely far higher.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, said that the final details are still being sorted out, but several organizations and leaders around the world framed the "long overdue" deal—set to take effect Sunday—as progress and issued clear calls about what should come next.
"Our most urgent call is for immediate and unhindered access to humanitarian aid and support, ensuring that vital resources and medical assistance can reach those in dire need."
"After so much devastation and death, we celebrate this cease-fire deal even as it comes far too late," said the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which has supported humanitarian efforts in Gaza since 1948. "We urge those in power to abide by the terms of the deal and their obligations under international law."
Noting that "in Lebanon, Israel has violated the cease-fire terms approximately a hundred times without consequence," AFSC stressed that "continued pressure is needed to ensure the terms of the deal are followed and push for a long-term political solution that brings an end to forced displacement, occupation, and apartheid in Palestine."
"As a U.S.-based Quaker organization we want in particular to hold our own government accountable," AFSC added. "We need an embargo on U.S. arms sales to Israel in order to deter future atrocities. Genocide on this scale would not have been possible without billions of dollars in U.S. military funding, and the Biden administration could have forced a cease-fire at any time over the past 15 months."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians, decimating Gaza's civilian infrastructure, and significantly limiting the flow of necessities including food into the enclave. AFSC said that "it is imperative that the cease-fire brings a measure of relief and a surge of lifesaving humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza."
Many other groups also demanded a flood of aid, including the International Rescue Committee, which has had teams on the ground in Gaza. Calling the cease-fire "essential and overdue," IRC president and CEO David Miliband said that "we are determined to expand our scale and impact as conditions allow. The scars of this war will be long-lasting, but a surge of aid is desperately needed to provide immediate relief to civilians. This will take flexible funding and the free flow of aid and aid workers."
Refugees International explained that "the deal, while a start, does not go far enough in outlining the explicit protections Israel and Hamas are obligated to provide Palestinian civilians. We are particularly concerned that the agreement ties the delivery of humanitarian aid and civilian protections—which are obligations under international law—to both sides' compliance with prisoner exchanges."
"Every cease-fire attempt between Israel and Hamas has ended in violations, and this should not be permitted to again imperil humanitarian action," the group said. "Humanitarian aid is a right under international law, not a bargaining tool. Humanitarian access must be ensured under any scenario, and the Israeli government must allow unimpeded humanitarian aid and access into all parts of Gaza, through all functional border crossings."
Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, similarly said that during the initial phase, "our most urgent call is for immediate and unhindered access to humanitarian aid and support, ensuring that vital resources and medical assistance can reach those in dire need. The opening of all crossings for aid deliveries is vital. Israel must allow the unhindered flow of aid and restore commercial activity to reach every corner of the besieged enclave to avert famine."
"Israel has waged terrible collective punishment upon Palestinians in Gaza including crimes against humanity—using food and water as weapons of war, forcibly displacing virtually the entire population, besieging North Gaza, and rendering Gaza virtually unlivable," the Oxfam leader added. "Thousands of Palestinians have been unlawfully detained and tortured without due process. These actions must not go unanswered—international law and norms must be applied universally, including to Israel, who must be held to account for its war crimes, to ensure justice for victims and deter future violations."
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president and co-founder of MedGlobal, which has provided medical care in Gaza, pointed out that detainees in Israeli custody include doctors who attempted to care for war victims as Israel laid to waste the strip's healthcare system.
"This cease-fire is cause for celebration, even as we know that it was needed many months ago, and that far too many have been killed, maimed, and rendered homeless or bereft of their family," said Sahloul. "We cannot forget that many Palestinian healthcare workers, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya and six other MedGlobal colleagues, remain unjustly detained and imprisoned by Israel. These medical personnel must be immediately released, and the safety and neutrality of healthcare providers and facilities must be guaranteed—as required by international humanitarian law."
"To promote true peace, prevent further suffering, and to help the people of Gaza recover from their terrible ordeal, all phases of this cease-fire must be fully carried out to bring a definitive and lasting end to the war," the doctor added. "The United States and the entire international community must commit to a massive program of aid and rebuilding in Gaza."
Welcoming the agreement and commending the mediators, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said that "the United Nations stands ready to support the implementation of this deal and scale up the delivery of sustained humanitarian relief to the countless Palestinians who continue to suffer. It is imperative that this cease-fire removes the significant security and political obstacles to delivering aid across Gaza."
"I urge the parties and all relevant partners to seize this opportunity to establish a credible political path to a better future for Palestinians, Israelis, and the broader region," Guterres continued. "Ending the occupation and achieving a negotiated two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, in line with international law, relevant U.N. resolutions, and previous agreements, remain an urgent priority."
Other U.N. leaders echoed his remarks, including United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Catherine Russell, who noted that "the war has exacted a horrific toll on Gaza's children—reportedly leaving at least 14,500 dead, thousands more injured, an estimated 17,000 unaccompanied or separated from their parents, and nearly 1 million displaced from their homes."
"The cease-fire must, finally, afford humanitarian actors the opportunity to safely roll out the massive response inside the Gaza Strip that is so desperately needed," she said. "This includes unimpeded access to reach all children and families with essential food and nutrition, healthcare and psychosocial support, clean water, and sanitation, education, and learning, as well as cash assistance and the resumption of commercial trucking operations."
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also emphasized that "food, water, medicine, shelter, and protection are the top priorities. We have no time to lose."
"Those responsible for the heinous acts of October 7, the subsequent unlawful killings of civilians across Gaza, and for all other crimes under international law must be held to account," Türk added. "The right of victims to full reparations must be upheld. There is no true way forward without honest truth-telling and accountability on all sides."
Some organizations, like AFSC, called out their governments for enabling the devastating Israeli assault. As the United Kingdom's prime minister, Keir Starmer, addressed the deal in a lengthy statement, Tim Bierley, Gaza campaign manager at Global Justice Now, said that "far from using its position to help end the bloodshed, the U.K. has provided Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover throughout its attacks, even seeking to deepen trade ties with the country amid daily massacres."
"While the U.K.'s role in this atrocity cannot be reversed, Keir Starmer's government must now work with other countries to prevent further violence, seek justice for Palestinians, and address the root cause of the conflict: Israel's occupation of Palestinian land," he argued. "This means pulling every lever necessary to end the occupation, including suspending the U.K.'s cozy trade relationship with Israel which serves to prop up the illegal occupation, supporting international measures to hold Israel's leaders to account, and suspending all remaining arms sales to Israel."
U.S. campaigners also urged their government to cut off weapons to Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace said that "as Americans, we understand that the Israeli genocide has been carried out with U.S. bombs, U.S. funds, and U.S.-facilitated impunity—we continue to demand a full weapons embargo now. We also demand an end to the complicity of corporations that profit from genocide."
"Left in the hands of the U.S. and Israeli governments, weapons manufacturers, and warmongering institutions, this fragile respite will not mean an end to Israeli genocide, or to the violent status quo of Israeli apartheid," the group warned. "Every day of the last 467 days, millions of people around the world have come together to demand an end to the genocide and Palestinian freedom. Together, we must ensure this agreement becomes a step on the path toward Palestinian liberation—the only way to achieve a just peace for all."
Some critics specifically took aim at outgoing President Joe Biden, who proposed a very similar cease-fire agreement back in May. The Democrat is set to leave office on Monday and, because Vice President Kamala Harris lost the November election, he will be replaced by Republican President-elect Donald Trump—who has been pushing for a Gaza cease-fire, or at least the appearance of one, before he returns to the White House for a second term.
"A recent YouGov poll found that 29% of nonvoters who supported Biden in 2020 cited ending Israel's violence in Gaza as the primary reason they chose not to vote for Kamala Harris," Uncommitted National Movement co-chairs Layla Elabed and Lexis Zeidan highlighted. "This underscores the Biden-Harris administration's failure to exert meaningful pressure on the Israeli government at critical moments when decisive action could have saved countless lives."
"We are also alarmed by reports that the Netanyahu government has allegedly struck deals with the Trump administration—promising settlement expansion, the curtailment of humanitarian aid, and an eventual return to Gaza military operations—in exchange for boosting Trump's image ahead of his inauguration," the pair added.
Center for International Policy president and CEO Nancy Okail said, "The fact that Netanyahu is finally accepting the deal mere days before his favored candidate in the recent U.S. presidential election will return to the Oval Office is confirmation of what Israeli, Arab, and even some U.S. officials involved in negotiations have been saying for months—that Netanyahu obstructed and delayed a cease-fire and hostage release to further his own personal political interests."
"Netanyahu's acquiescence to Donald Trump's insistence that a cease-fire be in place when he takes office next week ironically shows how effective actual pressure can be in changing Israeli government behavior," she continued.
"It will forever be part of the legacy of President Biden and his top foreign policy advisers that they not only provided diplomatic cover for and enabled Netanyahu's prolonging of this horrific war, but continued to arm Israeli atrocities against civilians in Gaza in clear violation of international and U.S. law," Okail added. "Thanks largely to his role in sustaining the carnage in Gaza, Biden hands over to Trump a foreign policy landscape in which international norms and U.S. credibility have been further eroded rather than strengthened."
Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian pledged that "as details emerge over the exact contours of the interim cease-fire agreement, we will continue to pressure Congress and the incoming administration to support a permanent, comprehensive end to this conflict—one that addresses its root causes, secures the release of all hostages, and paves the way towards a durable two-state solution that respects the rights, security, and dignity of all parties."
"Additionally, it is imperative to immediately begin the unimpeded delivery of critical humanitarian aid to Gaza and the restoration of full funding to UNRWA," Kharrazian said, referring to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. "We also continue to oppose the proposed
$8 billion arms sale to Israel and, while we support related efforts to negotiate for regional stability and peace, we strongly reject any plans for a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia."
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