Detention. Deportation. Eviction. Exploitation. Separation. Victimization. Criminalization. Intimidation. Frustration. Exhaustion.

Those are all common experiences for refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants arriving and settled in Europe. And those experiences do not happen by chance. Throughout much of the continent, governments, politicians and the media have set out, in a very conscious and calculating manner, to create what a British Prime Minister infamously described as a “hostile environment” for people seeking sanctuary in the region — the most prosperous in the world and one supposedly committed to progressive values.

It does not have to be this way. Two years ago, we set out to end the inhumanity at and within Europe’s borders, issuing a statement that called on all of the region’s states to treat new arrivals from other parts of the world with dignity and respect.

Our campaign has a number of important features. It is Europe-wide, encompassing EU and non-EU states, and also stretches to contiguous regions such as North Africa, which are seriously impacted by European refugee and migration policies.

It is a decentralized campaign, involving around 160 civil society organizations across the region. It is a non-political campaign, based on the principle that all states, governments and political parties must be held to account for their actions.

The campaign has deliberately avoided a legalistic approach to refugee and migrant rights, given the number of organizations already pursuing this approach. It is non-discriminatory in nature, based on the principle that all people who are on the move, whether they are categorized as refugees, asylum seekers or migrants, deserve to be treated fairly.

Finally, while the campaign is certainly idealistic, it is not naive. We have not called for the abolition of all borders. We recognize that some of the people arriving in Europe might not have a right to remain there. And we acknowledge that there are bad actors involved in the movement of people — including corrupt government officials, smugglers, traffickers, criminal gangs and unscrupulous immigration and asylum advisors — all of whom must be brought to justice.

On the subject of naivety, we are also painfully aware of the extent to which the political environment for refugee and migrant protection in Europe has deteriorated, even in the short time that we have been preparing the Manifesto. And nowhere is this to be seen more clearly than here in the UK, where a new government started out in a very positive way — by scrapping the awful deportation deal with Rwanda — but which has since joined the populist race to the bottom in terms of the inhumane treatment of people on the move.

After two years of consultation, consideration and analysis, we are pleased to announce the publication of our Campaign Manifesto, which we are launching here today. We hope that you find it convincing, compelling and constructive. It has been written in an accessible and jargon-free style and published in multiple languages. And it is based on five key demands that we hope will be used as a basis for advocacy activities throughout the continent by our partner organizations.

First, save lives, and stop using the threat of death as a deterrent to new arrivals.

Second, humanize the reception arrangements provided to refugees and other migrants and, most particularly, stop the use of detention.

Third, end the policies of containment and externalization that encourage and oblige states elsewhere in the world to act as gatekeepers for Europe.

Fourth, establish safe routes that will enable people to arrive in Europe in a regular and orderly manner.

And fifth, enable people on the move who have been subjected to human rights violations by states to seek justice and redress.

If you look at the Manifesto, you will see that we make a number of specific recommendations under each of these headings, and we very much welcome any feedback that you wish to provide on them.

While the Campaign Manifesto seeks to challenge the harmful policies that undermine the psychosocial wellbeing and mental health of people on the move, it does make recommendations with respect to the specific interventions that can be made to address those issues. And that is what we are here to discuss today, thanks to our colleagues from the University of East London.

We regard this evening’s event as a landmark in the campaign, which we hope to develop in a number of ways.

First, we hope to build our capacity. The campaign is almost entirely run by volunteers and we have very few financial resources at our disposal. Please let us know if you wish to support our efforts, whether that be by donating some of your time or by making a financial contribution.

Second, we want to strengthen our network of signatory organizations, as some European countries are unrepresented or underrepresented. We are also eager to extend the network to areas at the periphery of Europe, North Africa being a good example, and encourage all signatories to engage in advocacy activities at the national and local levels, using the different language versions of the Manifesto as a basis.

Third, we aim to improve our dissemination and promotional endeavours. We will consider the production of additional language versions of the Manifesto.

We will try to establish better contact with individuals and institutions in Brussels, especially in the European Union. And we will encourage international organizations such as UNHCR and IOM to engage in more vigorous public advocacy on the issues highlighted in the Manifesto. Finally, we will make every effort to be more positive!

While the European refugee and migration situation is generally a gloomy one, we are aware of the fact that positive things are also happening, especially at the local and community levels. Looking to the future, we will be developing new methods of identifying and publicizing the many positive initiatives that are being taken to ensure that new and recent arrivals in Europe are treated in a respectful, dignified and humane manner.

This publication is an excerpt from Dr. Jeff Crisp’s keynote address delivered at the launch of the United Against Inhumanity Manifesto at the University of East London on 16 April 2026.

About the author: Dr. Jeff Crisp is a Visiting Fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, former Head of Policy Development and Evaluation at UNHCR, and a volunteer with United Against Inhumanity (UAI).

The post “Humane borders: a Manifesto for European migration and asylum policies”, by Dr. Jeff Crisp appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

The collective punishment of the Afghan people who had no say in arrangements that have pauperized them or the conditions that contributed to the death of many, poses moral as well as political questions that have largely gone unanswered.

Following the Taliban takeover in Kabul in 2021, some US$9.5 billion of Afghanistan’s external reserves were seized by the US government.  Roughly US$7 billion held in the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York, and smaller amounts held in Europe, were effectively frozen. This action triggered a long legal and political dispute over ownership and control of these assets. Under President Biden’s 2022 Executive Order 14064, US authorities split the American-held reserves into two parts: US$3.5 billion was allocated to a Swiss-based not-for-profit Foundation, the “Fund for the Afghan People” also known as the Afghan Fund in Switzerland (AFS) while the remaining US$3.5 billion was set aside for litigation claims brought by American victims of the 9/11 attacks.[1]

The freezing of Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) reserves revived long-running litigation tied to claims by families of victims of the September 11 attacks and other terror related cases against the Taliban. Plaintiffs, in legal parlance, sought to attach, meaning to seize or take control of the DAB’s reserves held at the Federal Reserve Bank, arguing that the Taliban’s control over Afghanistan entitled a claimant in receipt of a judicial decision to pursue a legal claim against the seized reserves. Civil society organizations filed amicus briefs opposing the seizure, contending that the reserves belonged to the Afghan state and the population rather than to the Taliban as a sanctioned entity.

In a series of rulings beginning in 2022, federal courts in New York rejected attachment claims finding that DAB assets retained sovereign immunity protection under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and could not be treated as Taliban property.[2]  In 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld these decisions, confirming that private litigants could not seize the reserves to satisfy 9/11 related judgments. Although the rulings prevented confiscation of the reserves, they did not restore Afghanistan’s legitimate access to them, leaving most of the assets beyond reach or “frozen”.

While the Afghan Fund in Switzerland is accruing interest, there has been no disbursement to-date to recapitalize the DAB although the stated aim of the AFS is to “protect, preserve, and – on a targeted basis – disburse its assets for the benefit of the Afghan people”.

Critics describe the AFS as an unprecedented form of external financial control over a sovereign state’s reserves; the legal basis for administering and allocating central bank assets in this way could be challenged.[3]  The creation of the AFS also signals that externally-held central bank assets may be exposed to political and legal risk during periods of geopolitical dispute.  At the same time, supporters of the AFS mechanism argue that it prevents misuse by a sanctioned regime even though there is no evidence that the DAB has acted unlawfully or in a manner contrary to its statutory purpose.[4]

Efforts by UAI and others to elicit information on the AFS activities and plans have not proved productive. As of mid-June 2026, the Fund’s website had not been updated for over a year with the exception of the recent announcement of the appointment of Jonathan Greenstein of the US Treasury Department to the Board of Trustees. The general lack of AFS action and transparency raise questions about its usefulness and Switzerland’s role as an enabler of US foreign policy agendas that are tantamount to imposing collective punishment on the Afghan people. Meanwhile the AFS continues to accrue interest – presumably in the millions of US$ – while Afghans struggle to survive in desperate conditions.

The outcome of Biden’s 2022 decision is a prolonged state of paralysis in which the DAB lacks access to Afghan reserves. In addition, the creation of the AFS shows the increasingly blurred line between internationally authorized sanctions and unilateral coercive measures. Although many restrictions imposed after 2021 were presented as “sanctions” against the Taliban, the use of the reserves did not arise from a UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions regime but rather from unilateral actions by the US and other Western governments. This distinction matters because measures lacking explicit UNSC authorization, raise questions about the legality of unilateral measures such as these.

Meanwhile, the chronic poverty and harrowing deprivation suffered by millions of Afghans, have worsened as international aid budgets continue to diminish. Humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned that funding cuts by major donors have forced reductions in food assistance, healthcare, and nutrition programmes even as millions of Afghans face hunger, drought, displacement, and economic collapse. Child malnutrition is a major concern. Nearly 40% of infants, who were less than six months when admitted for treatment, suffered severe wasting with medical complications according to the UN in June 2026.[5]

Of course, aid reductions and sanctions-related restrictions are connected. Before 2021, external assistance made up a large share of Afghanistan’s GDP and public spending. In recent times, much needed humanitarian and other support has been slashed drastically

Financial restrictions, including the freezing of central bank reserves and limits on banking transactions, have isolated Afghanistan from global markets, restricted liquidity, and weakened private-sector confidence. Sanctions-related banking barriers have also complicated trade, disrupted remittance flows, and hindered humanitarian operations even where formal exemptions exist.

The Afghan case serves as a stark reminder that while sanctions and financial restrictions are formally aimed at governing authorities, their real effects are borne primarily by affected citizens including children born into desperate levels of poverty and deprivation.

The post “Deepening deprivation blights Afghan lives while politics obstruct the release of seized sovereign reserves” appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

This keynote explores how detention, deportation systems, and undocumented status generate forms of legal precarity that profoundly shape psychosocial wellbeing. It connects border regimes and immigration policy to lived experiences of uncertainty, stigma, and suspended belonging. Moving beyond narrow individualised framings, the talk situates distress within the structural and relational conditions that produce it. It argues that humane and effective responses to forced migration must address legal architecture and public narrative alongside care and support.

When we witness the suffering of people labelled as asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented people, our immediate societal impulse is often to reach for the vocabulary of Western psychology. We speak of “trauma”, stress, and resilience. We look at individuals and try to diagnose their pain.

But what if the frameworks we use to understand this distress are narrowing our vision?

Mainstream Western psychology and psychiatry operate on a straightforward, almost mechanistic logic: if you want to understand a person, you break them down into constituent parts (their thoughts, emotions, behaviours, symptoms, and diagnoses). The assumption is that if you treat the individual parts, you heal the person. However, this clinical vocabulary is far from a neutral or universal truth. It emerged from highly specific Euro-American traditions. While it can be useful in certain clinical contexts, it carries a distinct danger when applied to forced migration: it locates the pathology entirely within the person’s interiority. By focusing solely on the individual’s mind as the site of dysfunction, we effectively sanitise and obscure the hostile social, legal, and political conditions that actively produce and sustain that suffering.

The Performance of “Trauma”

In the context of the global border regime, this clinical over-coding takes on a deeply bureaucratic, almost violent significance. People who were forced to migrate find themselves navigating legal, humanitarian, and clinical systems that demand their lived experiences be rendered legible to Western metrics of trauma.

To secure safety or legal status, individuals are required to narrate their deepest histories of displacement in ways that are linear, coherent, and recognisable to the state (which includes within specific linguistic registers). Within these administrative spaces, fear is transformed into a form of currency; suffering becomes an objectified asset that must be repeatedly displayed, performed, and verified.

This system traps people within rigid, dehumanising dichotomies. They are forced to occupy the script of either the passive, completely shattered victim or, conversely, the hyper-resilient, idealised hero. This reductive casting privileges easily pathologised, discrete expressions of distress (such as the neat criteria of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)) while utterly delegitimising the more pervasive, insidious forms of suffering that define daily life at the border.

Legal Precarity as a Living Environment

We often talk about “legal precarity” as if it were a neutral administrative category or a temporary state of limbo. Precarity functions as a totalising psychological, somatic, and relational environment. To live indefinitely without knowing whether you will be permitted to stay, work, settle, form safe relationships, or imagine a future is to be cast into a chronic state of suspended belonging. This suspension fundamentally fractures a person’s phenomenological relationship with time, turning the future from a horizon of hope into an unpredictable source of dread. It erodes the capacity to trust and estranges one’s relationship to community. When we look closely at this environment, we see that acute psychological distress is not merely a psychological artifact carried forward from past experiences of conflict or persecution. It is being actively, dynamically manufactured in the present moment by the structural violence of systems that deliberately keep people in prolonged states of state-enforced uncertainty and hyper-conditionality. 

The border is not just a geographical boundary; it is a moving psychological apparatus that replicates itself within the very bodies and minds of everyone, especially those forced to navigate it in this alienating way.

The Risk of Therapeutic Containment

This poses a profound ethical challenge for those of us in the helping professions. Practitioners, therapists, and humanitarian workers offer vital spaces of human connection and relief. But we must ask an uncomfortable question: what are the limits of our interventions when they take place within systems that continue to systematically inflict harm?

If care and psychosocial support are offered in a vacuum (entirely divorced from an explicit commitment to rights and structural justice) there is a distinct risk that our work degenerates into a tool of containment. Instead of acting as a site of healing, the therapeutic space can inadvertently become a mechanism that helps marginalised people adjust to, tolerate, and endure hostile state architectures that remain fundamentally inhumane. Care without a critique of power subtly shifts the burden of adaptation onto the shoulders of the oppressed, leaving the oppressive system entirely unchallenged.

Shifting the Paradigm Toward Justice

If we are to respond meaningfully to the psychosocial impact of forced migration, we must radically expand our understanding of what wellbeing is. 

Well-being is not a product of individual coping mechanisms, cognitive restructuring, resilience or privatised clinical treatment. It is co-constituted by material and social realities: unrestricted access to safety, legal protection, collective community, meaningful activity, equity and belonging, and the concrete viability of a future.

Humane responses to forced migration must therefore move resolutely beyond individualised compassion or paternalistic charity. We must step away from the narrow question of how best to support individuals who are suffering, and instead ask the more urgent, uncomfortable question: what structural changes are we willing to fight for to dismantle the very systems that manufacture that suffering in the first place?

This publication is an excerpt from Dr Claire Marshall’s keynote address delivered at the launch of the United Against Inhumanity Manifesto at the University of East London on 16 April 2026.

About the author: she is a senior lecturer and chartered counselling psychologist in the university’s School of Childhood and Social Care. Her work focuses on areas such as refugee and forced-migration mental health, psychosocial interventions, trauma, humanitarian operations, and critical psychology. She has worked as a clinician, researcher, academic, and consultant with organizations including projects linked to international humanitarian and policy initiatives.

The post “Borders, Belonging and the Psycho-Social Impact of Precarity”, by Dr Claire Marshall appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

About the Book

Un-welcome to Denmark: The Paradigm Shift and Refugee Integration, written by Michelle Pace with Sarah El-Abd. Manchester University Press, 2025

The Danish «paradigm shift»

In 2019, Denmark enacted what it officially called a «paradigm shift» in migration policy: refugees were no longer conceived as people who would integrate into Danish society, but as temporary guests expected to return to their countries of origin as soon as conditions allowed. For thousands of Syrians who had spent years building a life in Denmark, this meant the loss of their residency permits and the permanent threat of deportation.

Michelle Pace, Professor of Global Studies based in Roskilde, Denmark has spent more than a decade documenting this process. Together with Sarah El-Abd, she has produced a comprehensive analysis combining in-depth interviews with Syrian refugees, welfare professionals and private-sector employers, alongside a detailed examination of the Danish legislative framework from 1983 to the present day.

The theory of the «unwelcome migrant»

The book’s central concept is that of the unwelcome migrant — an analytical category that illuminates how the Danish state, through its laws, programmes and official narratives, actively produces and perpetuates the precarity of those seeking protection. This goes beyond restrictive policies: it is an institutional gaze that frames refugees as «undeserving» subjects, subjected to constant surveillance, permanent conditionality and an insecurity that pervades every aspect of their daily lives.

The book traces with precision how this gaze has been materialised in concrete instruments — from the Aliens Act to the IGU labour integration programme, through the political discourse that has normalised the language of exclusion. It also documents the experience of those working within the system — social workers, counsellors, private companies — who are forced to navigate its contradictions while attempting, in their own ways, to «repair» the harm it produces.

Why we recommend this book

Un-welcome to Denmark is far more than an analysis of a single national case. It is a first-rate contribution to current debates on welfare nationalism, the securitisation of migration, human rights and the limits of integration as conceived across Europe. At a time when many countries are debating the direction of their asylum and reception policies, this book offers a well-grounded warning and a clear map of the human consequences of the most exclusionary choices available.

Its strength also lies in the plurality of voices it brings together. Moving beyond abstract narratives about migration, Pace (with El-Abd) centres real people: Syrians describing the anxiety of living inside a bureaucratic maze with no clear way out; professionals trying to support them without being able to change the rules of the game; and employers seeking pragmatic ways to sustain their presence in the labour market.

It is, in short, a book that deliberately unsettles — and that compels us to ask what kind of society we want to build, and what human cost we are prepared to accept for our political choices.

The book is available from Manchester University Press (2025).

For more information about the author and her research,  see her public profile on LinkedIn

The post «Un-welcome to Denmark»: when the world’s happiest country closes its door. appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

UAI joins the #VoteJustice4Palestine initiative launched by the Ceasefire Now coalition during Eurovision week, calling for justice, freedom, and solidarity with the Palestinian people.

As millions tune into Eurovision, Palestinian artists and cultural leaders are transforming the language of the contest itself into an act of solidarity: an alternative vote — not for a winning song, but for justice, freedom, dignity, and the right of Palestinian culture to exist and endure.

At a moment when many institutions refuse to take meaningful action, initiatives like #VoteJustice4Palestine show the power of culture, creativity, and collective participation to break silence and build international solidarity.

At the heart of the campaign is a newly re-recorded version of “The Drone Song” by Ahmed Abu Amsha and Gaza Birds Singing (music by Zaid Hilal), alongside a week of public engagement, social media actions, and cultural discussion running through the Eurovision final on 16 May. It is a powerful reminder that music and art can become tools against erasure.

Today, 12 May, a different kind of vote is proposed.
A vote grounded in conscience rather than competition.

Ahead of tonight’s Eurovision semi-final, a live cultural conversation brings together Palestinian cultural leaders to speak about Israel’s systematic destruction of Palestinian cultural heritage across the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This conversation is about celebrating Palestinian cultural heritage and identity, despite the suffering, the destruction, the ongoing genocide and siege.

📅 Webinar: Today, 12 May
🎤 Eurovision Final: 16 May

Register here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__7H3kDz5Q-qRYeZd92EGTg

Webinar invite/social post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYKnHxAiG3T/?igsh=YjNlcTYxODRzcmo2

Please share widely. Culture and identity are fundamental human rights.

The post A Different Kind of Vote appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

This piece was originally published by Swissinfo on April 27, 2026.

Afghanistan has been shaped by its rich and diverse cultural history from ancient to contemporary times. Although blessed with a wealth of untapped resources, nowadays, millions of Afghans are preoccupied with survival. Life, for many, is a daily battle against hunger, degraded or non-existent essential services such as clean water, sanitation and health care. Mounting debt and profound levels of poverty make Afghanistan one of the poorest countries in the world. This raises questions as to whether Afghan lives matter to those governments which have orchestrated unprecedented levels of destitution.

This opinion piece focuses on the policies of different stakeholders who have prioritised penalising Afghan citizens by means of economic warfare – an agenda of manufactured poverty – rather than engaging with the Taliban authorities, who take pride in their infamous rulings however repulsive to others. These edicts reinforce the Taliban’s interpretation of Afghan culture and deep-seated norms that have long discriminated against women and girls.

Poverty in Afghanistan is not a new phenomenon. It can be traced, in part, to almost five decades of armed conflict, including a post 9/11 war economy that sharpened structural inequalities. The United States-led occupation aggravated weak and corrupt governance and fuelled impunity. It also contributed to the return of the Taliban to Kabul in August 2021.

The re-emergence of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official name of the Taliban administration – triggered a host of punitive measures by the US and its allies. This included the immediate cessation of economic support to Kabul that, previously, relied on Western funding for 75% of government expenditure. The US blocked $9.1 billion (CHF7.1 billion) of the country’s external, sovereign reserves in 2021. This handcuffed the central bank, or Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), thereby suffocating the economy and banking system. As Dr. Shah Mehrabi, a respected economist noted at the time, the DAB’s lack of access to its dollar-denominated reserves would undermine its historic ability to maintain a stable exchange rate and curb inflation. Indeed, in any setting, an economy cannot function effectively in the absence of an experienced and credible central bank.

Given the dire straits faced by impoverished and destitute Afghans, the United Nations organised a system to, literally, fly in cash dollars to support humanitarian programming. This also proved a lifeline for the DAB, which could use these US dollars, once lodged locally, to undertake regular currency auctions to stabilise the value of the afghani, the local currency. This, in turn, enabled financial transactions and commercial trade.

This “fly-in cash dollars” system is now in jeopardy given the dramatic reduction in Western funding for humanitarian action that began last year and the absence of support for sustainable development since 2021. The US, which had provided “more than 40% of all aid in 2024” to Afghanistan, ended its assistance in a sudden and brutal fashion in April 2025. Coupled with drastic cuts by other donors such as Germany and the United Kingdom, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s most senior humanitarian official, notedafter a visit to the country last year that the humanitarian sector, overall, would shrink and many vulnerable people would die.

Data shows that 21.9 million Afghans, or 45% of the population, are in desperate need of humanitarian action this year. More than a third of the Afghan population of 45 million are currently experiencing devastating levels of hunger. Soaring rates of acute food insecurity means that a “staggering 3.7 million children will need malnutrition treatment”, reports the World Food Programme. The closure of more than 420 health facilities this past year has contributed to a “3 to 4 percent increase in infant mortality” and a noticeable increase in maternal deaths.

The Politics of Collective Punishment

A loud cacophony of condemnation of repressive Taliban policies by politicians, human rights actors and others have effectively made Afghanistan a pariah state while ignoring how measures that have shackled the DAB continue to strangle the economy. This policy of collective punishment ignores how poverty further marginalises the women and girls who bear the brunt of the Taliban’s disabling restrictions – restrictions that inhibit their presence outside the home including access to education, health care and employment.

Unceasing poverty has stretched traditional coping mechanisms to breaking point. Extended family networks are key in times of stress, as is migration to neighboring countries, remittances, debt and sale of essential farming and household assets. The forced return of some 5.4 million Afghans from Pakistan and Iran primarily, as well as Europe, in recent times has scuttled the flow of remittances and intensified economic hardships. A UN report last year indicated that nine in ten families, including many female-headed households that tend to be hardest hit by poverty, use harmful coping practices to survive.

In September 2022, the US transferred US$3.5 billion – half of the blocked Afghan reserves – to a newly created Fund for the Afghan People in Switzerland, ostensibly for the benefit of Afghans. It was assumed that this would help ease the economic and liquidity crisis in Afghanistan. Initially, the Afghan Fund focused on developing in-house procedures but this past year it has, apparently, gone into hibernation mode as indicated by the pace and content of its Board meetings. These days, my enquiries on this matter go unanswered, unlike in the early days of the Fund. To me, it appears to be stymied by politics rather than inertia in organising measures to recapitalise the DAB, even though this means ignoring the fact that the blocked assets are the property of the Afghan people, whose deliberate deprivation means ever greater mortality rates.

Strong-arm tactics have shaped US decision-making since its hasty retreat from Afghanistan in 2021. In addition, an array of actors including Switzerland, which claim to be strong proponents of human rights and routinely broadcast their concern about the fate of Afghan women, are also complicit in policies that are inhumane and totally at odds with the notion of justice and a shared humanity.

Whatever the politics, Afghan lives do matter. This is reflected in a variety of initiatives that call for an end to manufactured poverty and the suffering it entails. From the outset, United Against Inhumanity (where I am engaged) and other groups called for an end to the arbitrary sequestration of Afghan assets and for the re-capitalisation of the DAB. This can be done gradually, by disbursing a minimum of $150 million monthly under an internationally monitored framework. States with a history of donor funding during the post 9/11 era should also invest in sustainable capacity-building programmess for Afghans, with a focus on livelihoods, including entrepreneurship options for women.

The post “Do Afghan lives matter?”, by Norah Niland. appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

UAI welcomes Chinese shuttle diplomacy that has resulted in Pakistan and Afghanistan agreeing to a ceasefire, allowing the citizens of both countries to enjoy Eid in a respectful and peaceful manner.

UAI also greatly appreciates the role of China—currently the penholder on Afghanistan in the UN Security Council (UNSC)—at the multilateral level, as well as its call on all “relevant countries to unfreeze and return the assets of Afghanistan’s central bank.” The seizure of Afghanistan’s sovereign external reserves—the property of the Afghan people—by the United States and some European allies occurred shortly after the return of the Taliban to Kabul in August 2021 and the withdrawal of US and allied forces.

This ruinous measure was a significant factor in cratering the economy and undermining the banking system. Described by UAI as collective punishment, it has contributed to alarming levels of poverty and debt, the collapse of livelihoods, and the use of adverse coping mechanisms such as the exchange of young girls in marriage or the sale of body parts, such as kidneys, to stave off hunger.

Underlining the need for increased, rather than reduced, support for humanitarian action, Chinese representatives at a recent UNSC meeting called on “traditional donors, particularly those countries that bear historical responsibility toward Afghanistan, to resume and increase their aid” as soon as possible.

China’s diplomacy for long-term peace and stability ‘a rare, trustworthy public good,’ says expert
Shen Sheng.

For further information, see the following link:
China calls for Afghanistan-Pakistan ceasefire, ‘serving as stabilizing anchor for regional security in turbulent world’
Published in The Global Times. March 18, 2026 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202603/1357145.shtml

The post China Champions the Unfreezing of Afghanistan’s Funds appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

Having worked for years among refugees, people who fall in the interstices of state protection and need international protection, has led me to think critically about the nation-state, which has become today the sole political system considered as legitimate for organising collective life. The refugee might indeed be the political figure of our times, just as the citizen was during the French Revolution. It is a source of existential anxiety for nation-states, considering that the principle of non-refoulement – so central to international refugee law – represents a limitation of the prevailing doctrine of state sovereignty, constructed on the right to control a territory and its population and therefore to exclude non-nationals.

I had always considered that Jewish diasporic history offered a source of inspiration to imagine transnational forms of political participation. Indeed, the very notion of diaspora invites us to think beyond the normative framework of the nation-state and resist against the ideology of cultural homogeneity. It opens the possibility of transversal connections, through which separate places effectively become linked together by multiple attachments and social ties cutting across national borders. It might be a conceptual alternative to the prevailing model of the nation-state, based on the triad of population-language-territory, which restricts political rights to people supposed to share a cultural identity and dwell in a delimited piece of land. By contrast, Zionism endorses the universalisation of the nation-state as the only entity able to offer protection to people and harmoniously organise social life. 

For years, I tried to keep a certain distance from Israel and Palestine. Conducting research on Afghanistan and among Afghans, I felt I already had my load of human suffering. But I could not decline the invitation through Basil Farraj, a former PhD candidate of the Institute who is currently professor at Birzeit University, to participate in the inaugural Ramallah Congress on the Decolonisation of Palestine, jointly conveyed by Progressive International, the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies at Birzeit University, and Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. I travelled in the region between the 8^th and the 17^th of November 2025. 

Some twenty delegates – parliamentarians, journalists, lawyers, scholars – from Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated. Crossing the border from Jordan was already an experience that introduced us to the prevailing ambiance. We had been informed of the possibility that our electronic devices might be checked by the Israeli border guards. As a consequence, we were advised to purge our cell phones from anything that could be related to the Congress and remove apps that could be seen with suspicion, such as Signal and Telegram. This set the tone. And indeed, during the whole trip, the omnipresence of the surveillance technology implemented by the Israeli state provoked in me a feeling of unease that I never had before, even in undemocratic places where I travelled, such as Afghanistan, Iran, or Syria.

As of the first day in Ramallah, we were able to visualise the political topography of occupation and colonisation. Every hill surrounding the city was occupied by Israeli settlements, which behind high fences looked like military outposts. Like a scar in the landscape, the ugly concrete wall separates local villagers from their agricultural lands. Its security purpose did not appear clearly. Palestinian society is under siege. I was overwhelmed with a sense of asphyxia. 

For the following two days, we attended a conference on the campus of Birzeit University. A variety of topics were addressed ranging from settler colonialism, the economic dimension of occupation, the right to education, access to land and agriculture, the role but also the limitation of international law, the principles inspiring the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. Some presentations were more analytical, some others more everday but poignant testimonies of what it means to live and study under occupation. Unlike in Afghanistan, the political administration and humanitarian apparatus were left outside the scope of the discussion by successive speakers. The Palestinian Authority appeared discredited and UNRWA was not considered as very relevant when it came to political solution.

A smaller group of delegates, of which I was a part, extended their stay to travel throughout occupied Palestinian territory. With the Bisan Center, a Palestinian civil society organisation that promotes among other things community development programmes, we had the opportunity to visit the region of Tulkarm, in the north of the West Bank. We met farmers who showed us their vegetable gardens and olive groves. They described the raids conducted by the settlers. These are more and more frequent and violent since 7 October 2023.

Settlers burn trees and poison the land to render it unsuitable for agriculture. The landscape conveys a clear picture of dispossession. This includes multiple check points, yellow and the orange gates that may be closed without prior notice which renders every journey a random venture, the omnipresence of settlements overlooking Palestinian villages. We pass billboards with the inscription “No Future in Palestine” in Arabic, sometimes illustrated by an image of Palestinians being expelled from Gaza. Like the thousands of Israeli flags bordering some roads, it is a campaign by a settler group whose final objective towards Palestinians is all too evident. And indeed, we also had the opportunity to see the refugee camps of Tulkarm and Nur Shams, emptied manu militari from their populations in the summer of 2025. As night fell, they appeared as black holes at the edge of the town.

With colleagues from Sabeel, an ecumenical liberation theology center, we toured Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We also went to the Bedouin village of ‘Umm al-Kheir in the South Hebron Hills. Forcedly displaced from the Negev in 1948, these families purchased some land on the southern edges of the West Bank. After all these years, they are now encircled by Israeli settlers, who are becoming more and more aggressive. During our visit, some Israeli vehicles started to circulate around us while filming us through the windows. Eventually, two young women and a man, fully armed, came to indicate that we were in a military zone. After some tense exchanges, another man arrived. He shouted at us, hostilely, that we had 4 minutes to clear off. Like his colleague, his face was covered. He wore a balaclava and sunglasses, but his uniform had no military insignia indicating his Unit. When we left, he followed us on the road for 20 minutes. 

I will keep a vivid memory of many encounters, be it with a Jewish peace activist who considers that the humanist legacy of Judaism has to be protected from the Israeli apartheid regime and genocidal action, or with the director of an organic farm saying that Palestinians do not just want peace but want freedom. My trip to a dystopian land, a giant field for testing surveillance technologies and weaponry, was quite traumatizing but also uplifting given the fortitude of those I met. Facts are so crude that they speak for themselves. But I was equally shaken by my return to Switzerland. The complicity of Western authorities is no longer possible to ignore. Peace and justice are not a means to an end but an imperative human right. For Ilan Pappé, the great Israeli historian, the ideological project of the Israeli state is collapsing from within.

Relying on the principle that only people supposed to share a cultural identity and dwell in a delimited piece of land may live harmoniously together, the two-state solution enshrines the prevailing model of the nation-state that I mentioned at the beginning of this brief article.

Can’t the Holy Land be a place where the meaning of living together is reinvented in an inclusive way?

Don’t we all have a responsibility towards Palestinians as well as Israelis?

I am reminded of Omar El Akkad’s recent book: “One day, everyone will have always been against this”. Could this be today?

About the author: Professor Monsutti works at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, in Geneva.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author of the presentation and do not necessarily represent the views of United Against Inhumanity (UAI).

The post “Travelling in a Dystopian Land: Occupied Palestine” by Alessandro Monsutti. appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority group from Myanmar who have been subjected to decades of repression and expulsion. While the plight of those living in countries such as Bangladesh, India and Malaysia has been well documented, much less is known about those who reside in Saudi Arabia. This blog analyses the limited evidence available.

Introduction

For many years, members of Myanmar’s Rohingya population have travelled to Saudi Arabia seeking economic opportunity and refuge from persecution. But these goals have proven to be increasingly elusive.
Restrictions on movement and residency have intensified, increasing the Rohingya’s exposure to exploitation and deepening the precarity of daily life. Lacking legal protection and stable pathways to regularization, they face growing uncertainty, including, for some, the prospect of detention and deportation.
These developments reveal a broader pattern in which official ambiguity derives not from an administrative oversight but as a central feature and failure of governance for the Rohingya in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia’s Rohingya population

The Rohingya presence in Saudi Arabia dates back to the 1950s, when small numbers travelled by land and sea to Mecca to perform Hajj. Larger waves followed in the early 1970s after violence perpetrated against them in Myanmar. In 1973, King Faisal granted residency to Rohingya fleeing persecution, allowing them to work, live and travel within the Kingdom.
Many settled in under-served neighbourhoods of Mecca and Medina, forming close-knit networks that expanded over time as established families helped relatives to obtain visas through Saudi sponsors. Most work in low-paying roles such as street vending, cleaning, portering and other forms of unskilled labour, with the more fortunate amongst them becoming drivers.

For many, these arrangements initially appeared to offer a pathway to stability. Generations born in the Kingdom were able to maintain residency, a status that was often perceived as a type of informal citizenship. These arrangements, however, relied on administrative discretion rather than legal guarantees.

In terms of numbers, estimates vary widely. Several suggest that between 400,000 and 500,000 Rohingya are resident in the Kingdom, while the 2022 Saudi census recorded 163,700 people originating from Myanmar. In 2017, the authorities reported issuing approximately 250,000 special residency permits to Rohingya.

These divergent numbers reflect the wider challenge of Rohingya recognition and representation in Saudi Arabia. The absence of consistent registration mechanisms, combined with ambiguous legal status, contributes to persistent uncertainty over the size and visibility of the population.

Saudi refugee governance

Saudi Arabia is one of 44 states that are not signatories to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. It has no domestic legal framework for the recognition or protection of refugees. As Maja Janmyr and Charlotte Lysa note, the Saudi approach is best described as ad hoc, including the provision of temporary residency permits, limited access to basic services such as health and education, and short-term integration in the labour market.

In that respect, Saudi policy is closely tied to the kafala or sponsorship system. This framework reinforces the temporary nature of migration and shifts administrative responsibility onto employers, who exercise significant control over foreign workers.

Thus, in 2005, the Saudi Interior Minister stated that the Rohingya were “Burmese Muslims” who had come to perform Hajj but could not return, granting them residency and permission to work. Employers were encouraged to recruit from the Rohingya community, an arrangement later formalised by a Ministry of Labour policy that allowed employers to hire four times as many Rohingya as other foreign workers.

In 2013, the government established a committee to regulate the residency status of the Rohingya, but the resulting framework applied only to those who had arrived before 2008. Subsequent policy amendments expanded the authority of employers under the kafala system, enabling the Rohingya to be detained and deported if they attempted to work for anyone other than their officially recognised sponsor. As a result, some had no choice but to surrender their passports to their employers and to work under exploitative conditions.

Saudi Arabia has a distinct vocabulary in relation to the Rohingya and other refugees, referring to them not as such but as “guests,” “visitors,” or “brothers,” drawing on the language of Islamic hospitality and solidarity. This narrative serves several functions. It presents Saudi Arabia as a generous host, implies that the Rohingya displaced are receiving a favour rather than exercising rights, reinforces the expectation that all refugees are temporary regardless of how long they have lived in the Kingdom, and obscures the state’s legal responsibilities toward those in need of international protection.

Rights and citizenship

When the Rohingya first arrived in Saudi Arabia in the 1950s, Bangladesh was part of Pakistan, many believed that long-term residency would lead to some form of regularised status or even citizenship. According to one Pakistani embassy official interviewed in 2012, this expectation contributed to the country’s decision to stop renewing passports for Rohingya who had historically been documented as Pakistani nationals.

The absence of a secure nationality has left many Rohingya families in an increasingly precarious position. Under Saudi nationality law, children born to Rohingya fathers and Saudi mothers are not automatically eligible for citizenship, reinforcing patterns of inherited statelessness across generations.

Regional dynamics also play a role. Bangladesh, whose large migrant workforce in Saudi Arabia depends on the kafala system, has limited leverage to reject Rohingya deportations. Saudi authorities have reportedly used this labour dependency in negotiations over accepting deported Rohingya, underscoring how migration governance intersects with statelessness and economic interdependence.

Saudi Arabia’s ad-hoc approach has left many Rohingya in a condition of ‘permanent temporariness’, with longstanding residents unsure of whether and to what extent any of the rights and permissions they hold today will still apply tomorrow.

In March 2017, the Saudi Interior Ministry launched the ‘Homeland without illegals’ campaign, part of a wider effort to curb irregular migration and enforce residency rules. Since then, the authorities have carried out extensive raids to identify, detain and deport individuals deemed to lack valid documentation.

Detention and deportation

Many of these operations have occurred in Rohingya-populated neighbourhoods of Mecca, with reports of officers conducting raids while dressed as local residents. Businesses in these areas have also been targeted, while identity checks at roadside checkpoints have become more frequent. These practices have generated heightened uncertainty, prompting many Rohingya to rely on encrypted messaging apps to communicate with each other and to avoid digital surveillance.
Tensions have been heightened by clashes involving different migrant communities, private citizens and the security forces, with some reports suggesting that such incidents have been exacerbated by an inadequate police response.
Those detained during police operations are typically transferred to large detention centres, the most prominent being the Shumaisi facility near the Jeddah–Mecca highway. The complex reportedly holds up to 32,000 people and spans more than 2.5 million square metres, with men detained separately from women and children.

Upon arrival, detainees have their belongings, including passports and documents, confiscated. Many report receiving little information about their cases or the duration of detention, with some held for several years.
Concerns about the treatment of detainees in Shumaisi have been raised for more than a decade. A 2015 Human Rights Watch report documented inadequate food and sanitation and instances of violence by guards. Videos circulated by detainees show Rohingya prisoners engaging in a hunger strike. During one 2019 protest, seven out of roughly 650 Rohingya detainees were hospitalised. Other accounts describe immigration officers threatening to withhold water, blankets and clothing.

For many detainees, the primary motivation for protest is the desire to be released so they can resume work and support families abroad. Yet the statelessness of the Rohingya severely limits their options. Appeals to the consulates of India, Nepal and Pakistan are routinely rejected. Bangladeshi diplomats sometimes facilitate exit in exchange for a reported fee of $500 to $700, while other detainees resort to informal payments in the hope of securing their release.
Prolonged confinement contributes to significant psychological distress. A report by Middle East Eye highlights the anxiety produced by unclear legal procedures and uncertainty over release, with detainees describing a persistent sense of insecurity about their future.

Upon release, individuals undergo biometric registration, including fingerprint and retinal scans, which are added to a national database that bars undocumented workers from re-entering the Kingdom. While release provides relief for some, others face long-term consequences, including loss of livelihood and separation from community networks established over decades.

Despite the conditions reported by detainees, the official discourse portrays those held in Shumaisi as violators of immigration and residency laws. The official Saudi Gazette has also described the facility as a well-resourced centre providing food, healthcare and administrative support to those awaiting deportation.
Deportations are publicly framed as “repatriations” to countries such as Myanmar, Bangladesh and Pakistan. For many Rohingya, however, these states do not represent places of origin or citizenship, raising further concerns about their rights. Saudi government statements also emphasise the financial cost of deportation, reinforcing a narrative in which enforcement is presented as both necessary and burdensome.

The role of UNHCR

Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and has no formal procedure for the recognition of refugee status. UNHCR works in a restrictive environment and in close cooperation with Saudi authorities, limiting its ability to intervene on behalf of people falling under its mandate.

These constraints are reflected in the organisation’s public documents. Its 2024 factsheet on Saudi Arabia, for example, portrays the country as a “longtime partner” and emphasises the Kingdom’s contributions to humanitarian and development programmes. The Rohingya in Saudi Arabia are, the factsheet reports, treated “generally tolerant.”
This diplomatic language is typical of UNHCR’s engagement in non-signatory contexts, where the organisation’s activities depend heavily on maintaining constructive relations with the state.

As Lysa notes, UNHCR’s role in Saudi Arabia consists primarily of advocacy and monitoring. Its ability to register or provide direct assistance to refugees is limited, as is its access to people who are detained or at risk of deportation. These considerations all reinforce the ambiguous status of the country’s Rohingya refugees.

Conclusion

The absence of formal refugee recognition and rights in Saudi Arabia is not merely an administrative oversight, nor is it a refusal to adopt legal frameworks associated with Western legal traditions. It forms part of a governance model that allows the state to have a wide degree of discretionary authority over the Rohingya and other residents who are not Saudi citizens.

To enhance their protection, the Rohingya in Saudi Arabia should be formally recognised as refugees by the country’s authorities, rather than being broadly categorised as ‘Burmese’ or as ‘Muslim migrants from Myanmar’. Such formal recognition would improve the ability of the Rohingya to exercise rights and access services, while reducing the risk of them being subjected to punitive treatment.

Legal recognition as refugees should be accompanied by mechanisms that protect Rohingya from employer abuse, passport confiscation and arbitrary loss of residency. Establishing clearer pathways to regularisation would reduce the ‘permanent temporariness’ that currently characterises their situation. On no account should members of Saudi Arabia’s Rohingya population be deported to Myanmar.

While recognising the constraints under which UNHCR has to work, the organisation should advocate with the Saudi authorities on behalf of the Rohingya, speaking out in public when necessary to challenge the country’s policy of strategic ambiguity. In accordance with the global commitments it has made in relation to refugee consultation and representation, UNHCR should support the establishment of Rohingya-led organisations, ensuring that their perspectives and protection priorities are brought to the attention of the authorities.

About the Author: Sumayya Ferdous is a humanitarian practitioner and researcher specialising in Rohingya refugee protection and displacement issues. Her work focuses on gender, child protection, and advocacy for the rights and wellbeing of displaced communities.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author of the presentation and do not necessarily represent the views of United Against Inhumanity (UAI).

The post “When ambiguity is policy: Saudi Arabia and its Rohingya population” by Sumayya Ferdous appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

Based on the presentation delivered by Kholood Khair at the UAI General Assembly

Sudan is facing a convergence of crises—humanitarian, political, military, and existential. In her compelling address at the UAI General Assembly, Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, Director of Confluence Advisory, offered a sharp and deeply informed account of how Sudan reached this point and what the international community continues to misunderstand.

A Revolution Interrupted

Khair traced the roots of the conflict to the 2018–2019 revolution, a national awakening that went beyond the traditional urban centres to include peripheral regions that had long suffered under neglect, exploitation, and militarisation.

The revolution was followed by a fragile civilian–military partnership that collapsed with the 2021 military coup, which:

• Restored entrenched military and economic elites
• Reinvigorated Islamist patronage networks
• Reversed Sudan’s brief re-engagement with global institutions

The war that erupted in 2023 was not an isolated event but the culmination of a counter-revolutionary project aimed at dismantling the civic forces that had challenged the old order.

Militarisation and the Breakdown of Society

The war has resulted in:

• Forced recruitment by both the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)
• Ethnicised violence and targeted displacement
• Widespread hunger and collapse of services
• The systematic dismantling of civil society networks

Khair stressed that this is not merely a “civil war.” It is a war on civilians, designed to destroy the infrastructure of resistance committees, professional associations, women’s groups, and youth movements that powered the revolution.

The Battle for Global Opinion

A major theme of Khair’s presentation was the weaponisation of narrative.

Both SAF and RSF run sophisticated international propaganda efforts:

• SAF positions itself as the defender of national sovereignty
• RSF presents itself abroad as the anti-Islamist, technocratic, stabilising force

These narratives distort the conflict, reducing it to a binary that excludes civilians, erases the revolution, and obscures the deep structural drivers of violence.

Gulf Power Politics: A Critical Layer of the Conflict

Khair made it clear that Sudan’s war cannot be understood without acknowledging the strategic involvement of Gulf states—particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Why the Gulf is deeply invested in Sudan

Sudan’s value to Gulf powers lies in:

• Red Sea access and military positioning
• Land and agricultural projects linked to Gulf food security
• Gold trade networks, particularly those connected to RSF-linked companies

These interests make Sudan not simply a neighbour, but a geopolitical prize.

Saudi Arabia’s Influence

While Saudi Arabia publicly presents itself as a mediator—most visible through the Jeddah negotiation track—Khair highlighted that it also shapes the international frame through which Sudan is interpreted.

Riyadh’s influence results in:

• A diplomatic approach that prioritises elite-level stability over democratic transformation
• International messaging that sidelines Sudanese civilian political actors
• External pressure to favour agreements that maintain militarised political orders

Saudi Arabia’s close alignment with Western policymakers amplifies its narrative power.

The UAE’s Strategic Entanglement

The UAE, Khair noted, has longstanding ties to:

• RSF leadership
• Gold extraction and export chains
• Security contractors and logistical networks

These connections create strong incentives for Abu Dhabi to maintain influence over whichever actors can secure its economic and security interests.

Gulf Rivalries Exported Into Sudan

Although Saudi Arabia and the UAE are partners, their visions for Sudan diverge:

• Riyadh prefers a more consolidated, state-centric security arrangement
• Abu Dhabi has cultivated relationships with non-state actors, particularly the RSF

These tensions export Gulf rivalries directly into Sudanese political and military structures, often at the expense of civilian governance.

The Consequences for Sudan

Khair emphasised that Gulf influence has:

• Militarised Sudanese politics, deepening war economies
• Marginalised civilians in peace talks and international diplomacy
• Fragmented international policy, as Western actors treat Gulf states as indispensable partners in Sudan policy

In short, regional geopolitics—not Sudanese aspirations—often shape the world’s approach to the conflict.

A Call for Civilian-Centred Solidarity

Khair closed with a sobering assessment: Sudan is experiencing the world’s largest displacement crisis, a rapidly escalating famine, and a collapse of humanitarian access. Yet only a fraction of the UN’s funding appeal has been met.

Her message to the GA was unequivocal:

Sudan needs a global solidarity movement that places civilians—not militaries and not regional powers—at the centre of diplomacy, aid, and political engagement.

Without such a shift, Sudan risks being permanently trapped between the interests of warlords and the strategies of powerful external actors.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author of the presentation and do not necessarily represent the views of United Against Inhumanity (UAI).

The post Sudan’s War of Narratives appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.