A new report from United Against Inhumanity (UAI) and the United Nations Association – UK (UNA-UK) presents the findings of a multi-stakeholder workshop convened 5 September 2025, entitled ‘Alternative approaches to the Rohingya refugee situation’. 

Myanmar’s Rohingya population has been denied citizenship rights and subjected to systematic exclusion and mass expulsion for decades, with the result that most of its approximately three million people are now to be found in other states.   

Responses to the crisis have been predominantly short term and humanitarian, focused on meeting the basic needs of those displaced outside and within Myanmar. This approach has been inadequate. A broader strategy is now required, simultaneously addressing the political, security and developmental dimensions of the situation. 

This paper and its recommendations are submitted for consideration by participants at an international conference on the situation of Rohingya and other minorities in Myanmar, being held at the UN General Assembly in New York on 30 September 2025. 

Read the report here

The post New report: “An alternative approach to the Rohingya refugee situation”, by UAI and UNA-UK appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

Afghanistan is no longer a major focus of international media attention, but on-the-ground perspectives present a mixed and nuanced picture of everyday life under Taliban rule. Releasing Afghanistan’s seized external reserves – US$9.2 billion – remains as critical as ever to secure a functioning economy and banking system, which is key to reducing poverty and deprivation and enabling economic stability.

The situation in Afghanistan remains of grave concern. Economic warfare translates into the deepening pauperization of millions of Afghans. Vulnerable Afghans were already struggling to survive a hand-to-mouth existence after decades of warfare and dysfunctional governance when the Taliban returned to Kabul in August 2021. Three years later, heavily dependent on diminishing humanitarian support, 23.7 million Afghans – 52 percent of whom are children and 25 percent are women – are trapped in a debilitating cycle of poverty, increasing indebtedness, displacement, and disasters associated with natural hazards, including the effects of the climate crisis. The bulk of the population is routinely hungry; this is particularly threatening for a significant proportion of Afghans experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.

A key factor in the deprivation that Afghans suffer is the policy of the US and some European allies to seize and block access to the country’s sovereign reserves – the assets of the Afghan people – upon the withdrawal of US and allied troops from the country and the emergence of the Islamic Emirate (IEA) three years ago. Efforts to dismantle or sideline Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the country’s central bank, persist, as do restrictions that prevent arrangements with correspondent banks, which are essential for international transactions and access to the global financial system. Afghanistan has many unique features, but as in any setting, a functioning economy is fundamental to everyday survival, including livelihoods, at the local and national levels.

The human rights situation in Afghanistan is also of great concern. The multiethnic nature of Afghan society is often ignored in governance structures, to the detriment of minorities and prospects for an inclusive and equitable future. Measures that entrench deep-rooted discriminatory norms against females are widely condemned but to little apparent effect. The latest round of Vice and Virtue regulations further restricts the freedom of women and girls outside the home, including in relation to education, employment, freedom of movement, and expression. This will exacerbate the marginalization of females and diminish their life options.

Such discrimination undermines effective humanitarian action and other assistance programs, which, in turn, risks additional reductions in donor funding. It also complicates initiatives to promote constructive engagement with the de facto authorities, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Such an approach is needed to avoid making Afghanistan a pariah state and further isolating Afghans. It is also incumbent on human rights actors to acknowledge that the policy of disabling the DAB has harmful consequences for Afghans. This is particularly the case for destitute families who sometimes resort to adverse coping mechanisms such as the exchange of young girls in marriage.

There is broad consensus, inside and outside Afghanistan, that the IEA will remain in place for the foreseeable future as will its unique interpretation of Sharia law. This does not mean that changes will not occur. Afghanistan, and the wider region, is not immune to changing geopolitical dynamics. This includes, for example, the fallout of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that brings to the fore the perceived double standards of Western bloc countries, including their rhetoric on human rights and the relevance of the rule of law.

The IEA has made reference to this when claiming that human rights issues are a domestic concern. Thus, while different Western countries debate the extent to which they should engage but not recognize the IEA, various regional neighbors and others are keen to strengthen trade and other relations. Recent times have seen a surge in diplomatic activity involving high-level officials. China, for example, welcomed an IEA Ambassador to Beijing in January. The United Arab Emirates did so in Abu Dhabi in August. Uzbekistan’s Prime Minister visited Kabul in August.

Kabul announced in September that some 40 Afghan embassies and consulates now report to the IEA. Such diplomatic breakthroughs will, in principle, facilitate trade and investment in Afghanistan, a country that is one of the poorest and least developed in the world.

Conscious of the debilitating level of poverty in Afghanistan as well as reduced support for humanitarian action and access to public services, including health care, UAI remains focused on securing the release of the seized external reserves. These assets are vital for the work of the DAB, economic growth, and stability. It has been clear for some time that humanitarian action is not a substitute for a functioning economy and banking sector. It is also apparent that social change and reduction of inequalities are unlikely in a context of grinding poverty. Afghans need an end to the collective punishment inherent in the “frozen funds” policy. Afghans need, and have a right to, socio-economic development that is sustainable while addressing structural inequalities.

The Afghanistan Task Team relies on an array of contacts and networks to maintain a nuanced understanding of evolving events, including the impact of different fatwas around the country, taking into account local ethnic and other realities.

The “Release Afghanistan’s Frozen Funds” Campaign remains actively engaged on various fronts. Since mid-2023, UAI has issued various statements, blogs by a broad cross-section of authors, and periodic updates. All of these, together with articles posted on the Media Watch section, are readily available to the public on the Campaign’s dedicated website: https://www.against-inhumanity.org/campaigns/afghanistan-campaign/

UAI has engaged in different forums and panel events to discuss the “Frozen Funds” problem and the evolving situation in Afghanistan. UAI interacts on a routine basis with media personnel, NGO colleagues, and academics interested in Afghanistan. The Task Team keeps track of the activities and statements of the Fund for the Afghan People in Switzerland; it was established in 2022 when the Biden Administration transferred US$3.5 billion – half the amount of the seized Afghan sovereign reserves in the US – to this dedicated Fund that is mandated to protect and preserve these assets for the benefit of Afghans.

UAI continues to advocate that these resources are used to recapitalize the DAB. In common with other stakeholders, UAI, since the beginning of the campaign, has indicated that the DAB should have limited, conditional, and internationally monitored access to a minimum of US$150 million monthly. This would help the DAB, for example, hold regular currency auctions to help stabilize the value of the local currency, the afghani. UAI also concurs with the need to strengthen the DAB’s AML/CFT (anti-money laundering/counter-financing of terror) capabilities, a step that should be pursued quickly to avoid further delays that continue to harm Afghans in innumerable ways.

UAI’s Afghan Task Team meets periodically to review and take decisions geared to advancing the release of the “Frozen Funds.”

The post “Afghanistan: Still in Need of a Functioning Economy” – by Norah Niland (UAI) appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

UAI’s latest newsletter focuses on how the return of the Taliban to Kabul on the 15^th and the US troop withdrawal on 30^th August marks the end of the US-led occupation that began in October 2001 with the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom. The three-year anniversary of these tumultuous events is also an occasion to reflect on the current and evolving situation from the perspective of in-country Afghans.

The funds remain frozen
UAI remains preoccupied with the ramifications of the US-led seizure of US$ 9.2 billion of Afghanistan’s external reserves.   This arbitrary confiscation hobbled the economy and the Afghan central bank – Da Afghanistan Bank – which nonetheless has done a reasonable job in avoiding levels of inflation that would further impoverish millions of poor Afghans.

UAI’s statement published on 15th August challenges the narrative of widespread concern about the day-to-day reality of Afghan women and girls; their historical experience of marginalization has been exacerbated by the many discriminatory edicts of the de facto authorities. However, such narratives simultaneously ignore the collective punishment and related deprivation that harm Afghan females who are most adversely affected by the manufactured poverty inherent in the disastrous frozen funds policy.  

Inside the Taliban’s Afghanistan
Jean-François, a member of UAI’s  Afghanistan Task Team, and Sonia, who live in Kabul, recently made a road trip with their two adult children around Afghanistan, a country they “have loved for decades” and where they have worked on various occasions. Their wide-ranging article is full of reflections worthwhile read!

The article shows that regular Afghans appreciate the end of decades of armed conflict and much improved physical security as evidenced in crowded bazaars. However, poverty and deprivation are readily apparent. On the plus side, corruption has much reduced. Travelling in rural Afghanistan during the wheat harvest season, the Cautains found fields full of busy “men, women and teenagers”. Agriculture remains greatly dependent on physical labour and basic tools such as the sickle notwithstanding the billions of international aid dollars poured into Afghanistan during two decades of nation-building. Discussions with farming families and others show that the unregulated use and depletion of underground water resources raise a range of critical issues including the overdue need for investment in sustainable food production and other infrastructure.

As Afghans wrestle with deepening poverty, the marginalized situation of females and a host of other problems, there is some hope that constructive and pragmatic diplomatic dialogue will enable more political space for engagement and the availability of resources needed to build a more productive and peaceful future.

Our Media Watch Is Always on Duty
UAI, in the Media Watch section of the “Release Afghanistan’s Frozen Funds” campaign site, routinely posts relevant articles and reports. In August, postings include for example, an International Crisis Group report by Graeme Smith “Afghanistan Three Years After the Taliban Takeover”.

Join us against inhumanity
UAI, in collaboration with other civil society actors, in and outside Afghanistan, will persist in promoting an end to the arbitrary and questionable seizure of Afghanistan’s sovereign reserves.
Everyone interested in joining this campaign is invited to do so!  

Any suggestions or queries can be sent to contact@against-inhumanity.org

The post “Afghanistan at a Crossroads: Three Years of Taliban Rule and Ongoing Challenges”. appeared first on United Against Inhumanity.

For too long, there has been limited or no accountability for specific incidents and patterns of atrocity, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced displacement, destruction of food, water, agriculture and other assets essential for survival. Impunity can be attributed in part to a degraded multilateral system where hegemonic and commercial interests, coupled with great power rivalries, have effectively paralyzed the UN Security Council (UNSC) in recent times. There is an obvious need for fresh thinking on the political, economic and military dynamics of an interdependent but increasingly polarized and turbulent world. Lessons must also be learned from a long history of carnage and the political conditions that sustain evil agendas, whether these are orchestrated or are the banal outcome of indifference to monstrous cruelties. Pervasive impunity, aided and abetted by lackluster efforts to secure accountability, could be a useful place to start.

Atrocity has a long and repetitive history as ruthless leaders or groups have pushed to acquire, expand or consolidate wealth and power whatever the consequences for individual communities. The depravity of spare-no-one, scorched earth strategies – on and off the battlefield – in the first century BCE during the Gallic wars, in 16^th century Ireland, during the US civil war, and in Guatemala in the 1980s exemplify deliberate and strategic barbarity.  The non-stop coverage of what dehumanization, and its denial, means in Gaza, and the bloody devastation underway in Sudan, show contemporary humanity at its worst. Likewise, siege warfare and its calamitous consequences, is an historical fact that remains a feature of 21^st century warfare.  In Syria, this tactic was used to starve encircled towns or enclaves both by Assad and some opposition forces. Examples of deliberate starvation in living memory bring Biafra, Aleppo, Tigray, Yemen, Sudan and Gaza to mind.  

The abomination of mass slaughter and other atrocities were recorded in different historical accounts but such events were, primarily, a concern to those individuals and communities who were directly affected. This pattern persisted with the emergence of the state-centric Westphalian system in the late 17^th century. States consolidated notions of ‘sovereignty’ in a fashion that discouraged external concern about governance systems that murdered or tortured citizens at will.  The horrific human cost of the Holocaust, fascist dictatorship, and World War II, coupled with the adoption of the UN Charter, recognition of ‘crimes against humanity’ at the 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal, the signing of the Genocide Convention (1948) and the Geneva Conventions (1949) heralded the start of a new dawn in the spirit of ‘Never Again’. However, norms of non-intervention to end atrocity prevailed including, for example, in the context of the Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia. The Vietnamese invasion (1978) that routed Pol Pot was widely condemned by the West and its Asian allies.

In the short period of the 1990s interregnum – from the end of the Cold War to the 9/11 attacks on the United States (US) and the subsequent, knee-jerk launch of the so-called ‘Global War on Terror’ – there were multiple challenges to the non-intervention doctrine.  The UN was called on to act in a string of crises such as Somalia (1993), the Rwandan genocide (1994), Srebrenica (1995) and Kosovo (1999).   In 1999, the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution on the protection of civilians in armed conflict an issue that was also debated in the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

The discourse on the merits or otherwise of ‘humanitarian intervention’ persisted in parallel to events leading up to the launch of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) agenda that was adopted at the 2005 World Summit.  In principle, this new norm reaffirmed Common Article One of the 1949 Geneva Conventions which requires all State Parties to “respect and to ensure respect” for International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in all circumstances.  As Gareth Evans, a key architect and proponent of R2P, noted in 2008, it is “one thing to have a formal agreement and quite another” to have a situation that means “when the next conscience-shocking atrocity” occurs there will be a universal reflex “not to ask whether to act, but only where, when and how to act.”  Unfortunately, the broad but not universal consensus that initially surrounded R2P has not survived.  R2P has been used to useful effect on some occasions but came to be associated with regime change by Western states after it was invoked, officially for the first time by the UN in 2011, to authorize an intervention in Libya.  Support for robust interventions has, since then, waned significantly.  Fifteen UN peace missions were launched in Africa between 1994 and 2007 but the “hope that interventions and humanitarian aid would end wars was replaced by a cynicism that intervention only escalated them or made them messier.” Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge some successes. These included the mediation work of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with a coterie of respected Africans to quell post-election violence resulting in death and displacement in Kenya, early 2008. Mediation talks ended the fighting and led to the formation of a coalition government and agreed reforms.

It is equally important to be aware of the many initiatives, in and outside inter-governmental infrastructure, that have been developed to address the atrocity-feeding, malignant significance of impunity.  Efforts to hold perpetrators to account for egregious crimes include a series of Tribunals created in the 1990s such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Tribunals, geared to address a specific set of criminal acts, were also established for Kosovo, East Timor, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and Cambodia.  These Tribunals, coupled with other factors such as the broad consensus on the definition of genocide and other serious crimes, were important elements in the lead-up to, and adoption of, the Rome Statute in 1998. Seven countries – US, China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Qatar and Yemen – voted against the adoption of the Statute. Russia withdrew (2016) its signature to the ICC further to its 2014 annexation of Crimea. The Rome Statute treaty entered into force in 2002 thereby creating the first permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) to help end impunity, put on notice would-be criminals, and buttress multilateralism and a rules-based international order.

The ICC has pursued investigations and convictions since its creation with its first verdict issued in 2012.  It has been criticized for a perceived pre-occupation with Africa while ignoring, for example, the role of some high-profile Western leaders such as Tony Blair and George Bush in relation to the war in Iraq.  In May 2024, forty-five UN human rights (HR) experts expressed alarm and dismay over statements made by Israeli and US officials threatening retaliation against the ICC in relation to its investigation of crimes reportedly committed in Palestine.  This investigation, concerned with alleged crimes since 2014, includes ongoing hostilities in occupied Gaza and the West Bank.

Experience shows that the task of ensuring a reckoning for atrocity in a formal, judicial process is an uphill battle. It is also time-consuming, expensive and is greatly constrained by might-is-right political agendas.  Since the ICC does not have any enforcement capabilities per se, it is dependent on States to facilitate pre-trial actions such as arrests and taking the steps necessary to ensure defendants show up in court. The ICC’s efforts to arrest and prosecute Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir on Darfur genocide charges illustrate the court’s lack of institutional resources. It also highlights the poor compliance and lack of collaboration of signatory states and others that is further complicated by the veto power of the UNSC’s Permanent Five.

When politics is at odds with accountability for egregious crimes in relation to individuals that are considered above the law, it is difficult, if near impossible, for justice to prevail.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the UN is, at first glance, well situated, given its core mandate, to challenge impunity. Established in 1945, with the adoption of the UN Charter, its two critical functions are to (a) settle legal disputes, submitted by states, in accordance with international law and (b) provide advisory opinions on legal questions to the UNSC, UN General Assembly (UNGA) and other UN entities. On paper, the UNSC and the ICJ have a symbiotic relationship; the Council, for example, is responsible for addressing instances of state non-compliance with ICJ judgements.  However, the UNSC has made little use of the ICJ in the maintenance of international peace and security.  Nonetheless, there is broad acknowledgement – at least rhetorically – that compliance with ICJ decisions would strengthen, globally, the rule of law including in terms of dispute resolution and peace more generally. In an Open 2023 Debate at the UNSC more than 70 states affirmed the importance of ensuring respect for the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction, and that compliance with its decisions is an essential element of safeguarding the rule of law.[7]  However, this meeting also made clear that there are substantive differences of opinion on the contemporary meaning of a ‘rules-based international order’. Such phraseology is seen by some states as ambiguous and, thus, a means for hegemonic states to impose their will on others. In other words, global ordering needs to be free of coercive policies that are seen as antagonistic to traditional notions of sovereignty, mutual respect, and peaceful co-existence in a multi-polar world.  

Multilateralism is Undermined

The risk of lawlessness, atrocity, and impunity increases when state authorities, big and small, trample norms and the treaties geared to securing a just and peaceful global order. An obvious example of the many hurdles that impede the effectiveness of the ICJ is the ongoing case, brought to the Court by South Africa against Israel, on the danger of genocide unfolding in Gaza. While the Court has yet to rule on the merits of the case – a process that will likely take a few years – it has issued different sets of provisional measures. In January 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to take all necessary measures to prevent breaches of the Genocide Convention and reaffirmed this in March. After Israel launched an offensive on Rafah – a city that forcibly displaced civilians had swelled to more than a million – the ICJ again intervened in May. Its call for an immediate halt to military operations and any other actions in the Rafah governorate was ignored. In July, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is illegal and must end.

Israel routinely and consistently claims that it operates in compliance with international law notwithstanding mountains of evidence to the contrary.  It does so in the knowledge that the US, and other states such as France, Germany and the UK, have long provided military equipment to Tel Aviv.  Such support, buttressed by UNSC vetoes notwithstanding well-documented massacres, disruption of aid supplies as starvation threatens famine, and repeated coerced displacements indicate a purposeful lack of interest in the findings of the ICJ.  It also ignores the evidence in countless studies and reports on the scale and depth of the depravity that signals an overdue reckoning for such unconscionable barbarity. The enablers of the dehumanization that has long scarred the history of Palestinians demonstrate their indifference to, and complicity with, the horrific crimes the children of Gaza, and their families, are made to endure. This exhibits a profound disregard for a rules-based order. It also shines a light on the hypocrisy and double standards increasingly associated with Western and other countries that have long cherished the self-proclaimed narrative of being champions of human rights, justice and freedom.

Nine months and counting since the indefensible Hamas attack on Israel last October, and the subsequent carnage that has engulfed Gaza, much of humankind is numbed by the daily slaughter, enraged at our collective willingness to allow such atrocities to persist, and shocked that, collectively, we tolerate such systemic and systematic cruelty.  Reactions of everyday citizens include spontaneous and organized action such as taking to the streets calling for a ceasefire, student campus sit-ins around the world, contacting elected representatives and mobilizing or expanding boycotts and sanctions mechanisms. Numerous campaigns are working hard to stop arms sales or to advance efforts to officially recognize the State of Palestine as well as dedicated attention to achieving a viable one-state or two-state solution.  Musicians have held concerts.  Book clubs have raised money to support education in Gaza. Top-of-art communication technologies and media platforms have increased awareness and informed debates so that millions of people are vocal in expressing their moral angst while pushing for change.  Some of this energetic tide of concern is reflected in various UNGA emergency and other meetings with a significant majority calling for an end to the violence, recognition of the Palestinian state, and greater Palestinian participation in the world body.

It is not yet clear whether the shared trauma of Gaza, and other turbulent hotspots, represent an inflection point that signals a shift in attitudes to cynical geo-political agendas and the way civilians are dehumanized and brutalized. But few will disagree that atrocities, and their enablers, need to be held to account. To not do so is to enable impunity and the type of hypocrisy that tut-tuts the unprecedented killing and maiming of more than two-percent of Gaza’s children while arming, or otherwise facilitating, unrestrained and undifferentiated warfare.

Conclusion

As we approach the end of an era demarcated by Pax Americana and Western-style multilateralism distorted by neo-colonialism, challenges to the laws of war and human rights norms are set to increase, as will atrocity trends dutifully fed by impunity. The world is shifting from competitive style multilateralism to an evolving multi-polar world order populated by regional and diverse ‘pragmatic’ alliances.  The lack of appropriate non-Western representation in the UN and other post-WWII inter-governmental infrastructure will further weaken these institutions.  The prospect of peaceful resolution of disputes will likely diminish as the upward incidence of armed conflict persists. Already, some two billion people “a quarter of the global population …now live in conflict-affected areas.”

As in the past, economic and security interests will likely take precedence over a just, stable, climate-friendly global order.  The growth of polarized societies in the traditional democracies, coupled with the changing nature of globalizing trends and the accumulation of power, countries such as China – a digital supremo and trading giant – will increasingly shape the parameters of a new balance of power. In a multi-polar global framework the previously dominant West will occupy a more limited space than before.  The extent to which this greatly changed global order will provide opportunities to build a more sane, safe and humane world that rejects the sordid self-interested policies of the past will depend, significantly, on the energy and commitment of collaborative, grass-roots activism and accountable governance.  The obvious lessons of humanity’s blood-stained history, coupled with the many tools provided by the digital revolution, need to be maximized to mobilize concerned citizens everywhere. This includes the many who are disgusted, enraged and eager to be part of an anti-atrocity-end-impunity movement that is rooted in a “We the Peoples” campaign opposed to the usurpation of freedom and the dehumanization of fellow human beings everywhere.  Importantly, this needs to be a local, regional and joined-up global endeavour that is free of the usual power politics at odds with the core tenets of a shared humanity.

While Isabel Allende noted that ‘Nothing’s as dangerous as power with impunity’ one can also ask how comfortable we all are with unfettered abuse of power?  A central question confronting citizens everywhere is how to join arms with others, near and far, to push for an end to the economic and political conditions that shape atrocity, impunity and the dehumanization this entails.

About the author: Norah Niland is a long-time humanitarian and human rights practitioner who first engaged in challenging social injustices as a teenage civil rights activist in Northern Ireland. More recently, Norah worked in Afghanistan as head of the UNAMA human rights team that developed a program to reduce the direct impact of war on civilians with the use of evidence-based advocacy.

The content is the author’s responsibility alone and does not necessarily reflect the views of UAI or any of its members.

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The levels of brutality and inhumanity being suffered by people in Sudan, as a result of the conflict that broke out on 15 April 2023, are truly shocking. In spite of this, the attention of the world’s diplomats and media seems to be distracted by other conflicts.

The assessment of the experts is that, in the absence of serious pressure on the external supporters of the parties to the conflict to cease their financial and military support, the war is likely to become protracted, and will result in preventable mass starvation and further atrocities amounting to genocide. Urgent efforts to ramp up humanitarian assistance and access, and immediate civilian protection and atrocity prevention initiatives are now of paramount importance.

Currently, efforts to ensure access to humanitarian aid are being hampered by:

• Unacceptable barriers put up by the parties to the conflict
• Inadequate resources from donors
• Poor coordination between international agencies and local groups involved in offering help

In these circumstances, the experts believe it is essential that humanitarian efforts be given a much higher profile, both with regard to local actors and among the international community.

They therefore strongly urge The Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) to ask the Secretary-General to immediately appoint a high-level Humanitarian Envoy.

This envoy needs to be a person with an international stature, extensive experience of humanitarian operations and easy access to international media.

Secondly, the experts and activists request the ERC to use his influence to ask the Secretary General to publicly condemn the ongoing genocide by the RSF in Darfur, to call out those who fuel the violence by supplying arms, stoking ethnic conflict through hate speech or by deliberately blocking delivery of humanitarian aid to populations facing famine, and to urgently activate UN Security Council Resolution 2719 by conducting a joint strategic assessment in partnership with the African Union (AU) Commission Chair as a first step towards establishing a protection force to prevent further atrocities.

At this crucial moment, when the ERC is stepping down and awaiting the appointment and induction of his successor, the experts believe it essential that the advocacy for the protection of, and assistance to, Sudanese civilians, as well as the arrangements for positioning the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the region, are given the highest possible priority.

The signatories to the letter include:

For further information and press, contact@against-inhumanity.org  

About: UAI (United Against Inhumanity) has formed a Task Team on Sudan to bring together experts and activists to demand urgent action by states and international organisations to bring the conflict in Sudan to an end and to address the horrendous human suffering in Sudan.

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The banknotes were scheduled to arrive last year during the Ashraf Ghani Administration. They had been ordered in 2020 by Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), the country’s central bank, but a combination of sanctions, a risk-averse banking sector, and concerns about the viability of the DAB had thwarted the delivery of the new banknotes.

In a cash-based economy, existing banknotes had, literally, been falling apart. Many banknotes, of all denominations, were held together by sellotape. They were often rejected or attributed a lesser value given fears of shopkeepers that they would prove worthless. The poor, especially women, were particularly vulnerable to being short-changed. The 10 billion newly printed afghanis will be welcomed by Afghans as soon as they begin to circulate in shops and markets. Afghanis are vital for local commerce and liquidity. The delivery of the afghanis also represents a boost for the DAB which has, effectively, been cut off from the international financial system, including intermediary banks, since the return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in August last year.  

As Afghans face another harsh winter with less resources than a year ago – debt has surged in tandem with growing unemployment and a significant drop in livelihoods – the ability of the DAB to deliver on one of its core responsibilities is an important indicator that practical politics are possible.  It also shows that there are alternatives to policies that make regular Afghan citizens suffer for problems not of their making.

According to Dr. Shah Mehrabi, a member of the DAB’s governing board who has worked tirelessly to have the printed afghanis delivered, the US Treasury’s assurances to banks and companies that they would not be prosecuted for falling foul of sanctions, was instrumental in unblocking the shipment.

Building on recent policy changes, including the creation of a Swiss-based Afghan Fund with – US$3.5 billion – half of the Afghan external reserves arbitrarily held in the US, it is important that mechanisms are established, quickly, to enable the recapitalization of the DAB so that it can deliver on its macro-economic responsibilities. This is critical to revitalizing the Afghan banking and economic sector, the only sustainable way to create jobs and reduce spiralling humanitarian need.

Other measures are, unquestionably, required to address the many issues posed by repressive and discriminatory Taliban policies and practices.  But, as winter takes hold, it is vital that Afghans are able to pursue routine commercial transactions – such as the sale and purchase of food and fuel – while also investing in measures that are fundamental to life-saving income-generation activities.

Robust civil society action since earlier this year helped maintain a spotlight on policies that froze the assets of the central bank resulting, effectively, in collective punishment as food insecurity became an existential question for a growing number of Afghan families. 

United Against Inhumanity will continue to engage with all concerned stakeholders interested in addressing and mitigating the harm Afghans are made to endure.

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While Afghans are starving, more than $9 billion of the country’s reserve funds remain frozen in banks in the US and Europe. This is outrageous. We call on President Biden, Chancellor Scholz, Prime Ministers Draghi and Johnson immediately to unfreeze Afghan funds held in banks in their countries.

The frozen funds belong to the Da Afghanistan Bank, the country’s Central Bank. These are essential to the normal running of the Afghan economy. Without access to these funds, the banking system has collapsed, workers cannot receive their salaries and companies cannot be paid for their goods. Add your name to this petition to help Afghans who are facing unprecedented levels of hardship during a fierce winter.

On 11 February, President Biden issued an Executive Order taking control of the $7 billion of Afghanistan’s reserves held in US banks; half this amount is already tied up in legal proceedings concerning claims for compensation made by victims of the 9/11 attacks. The people of Afghanistan played no part in those attacks. The US government has spent over $2 trillion on its intervention in Afghanistan since 2001. It certainly has adequate resources to compensate the families of 9/11 victims – which we support – without punishing the people of Afghanistan.

Sign the urgent appeal to call on President Biden and European leaders immediately to unblock all the frozen funds.

We ask President Biden to revoke his Executive Order of 11 February and, as a first step, to authorize the release of US$150 million monthly to Afghanistan’s Central Bank, so that it can fulfil its essential role in creating liquidity in the economy. These releases can be monitored by international auditors with an option to terminate in the event of interference by the Taliban de facto  authorities in the independent running of the Central Bank.

United Against Inhumanity  (UAI) is an international movement of individuals and civil society organisations outraged about the harm and suffering that war-affected communities are made to endure and erosion of the global asylum regime. Through mobilising our collective commitment and efforts, UAI challenges the inhumanity that destroys lives and tears apart societies.

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