Following the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul in mid-August, the world has watched in horror a dire human rights and humanitarian crisis as thousands of people desperately seek to flee Afghanistan. Amnesty International has received desperate calls from human rights defenders (HRDs), journalists, civil society activists, academics, women activists, and ethnic and religious minorities seeking help to get them and their families out.
In the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. forces and diplomats from Afghanistan, Amnesty International USA calls on the U.S. government to implement a whole-of-government strategy that protects the human rights of Afghan civilians left behind and the rights of arriving Afghans to the U.S. While Aug. 31 has passed, the Biden administration must pursue every avenue to provide protection and safe evacuation to the thousands of Afghan civilians who face serious risk of reprisals and persecution from the Taliban. We call on all U.S. lawmakers to commit to evacuating, supporting, and welcoming the resettlement of all vulnerable Afghans, irrespective of deadline.
Responding to President Biden’s Aug. 31 speech, Paul O’Brien, the executive director of Amnesty International USA said:
“Adhering to his arbitrarily determined deadline, President Biden failed to put in place a successful plan for the evacuation of all Afghans at greatest risk. His plan fails those most at risk in Afghanistan and abdicates the U.S. government’s obligations to the Afghan people, obligations made heavy by the weight of a two-decade military presence. At this very moment at-risk journalists, interpreters, and women’s rights activists left behind in Afghanistan desperately phone their contacts abroad, asking for help. Their fears are real.”
Amnesty International USA is calling on the Biden Administration to:
- Commit to admitting at least 200,000 refugees in fiscal year 2022, and immediately commit to halt any and all removals to Afghanistan and designate Afghanistan for Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
- Work with Congress to ensure all arriving Afghans have a roadmap to citizenship and access to refugee resettlement benefits, including food, shelter, transportation, medical assistance, English training, employment preparation, and job placement
- Promote and expand community sponsorship – including a new private sponsorship program – to empower people across the country to directly welcome and support our new Afghan neighbors
- Use all diplomatic means to press Afghanistan’s neighbors to open their borders to Afghanistan’s refugees
- Stand up a robust humanitarian infrastructure to support Afghan refugees, including by urging Congress to pass emergency funding to support Afghans abroad and Afghans arriving to the U.S.
- Work with the UN to establish a fact-finding mission or similar investigative mechanism, with a multi-year mandate to investigate all crimes under international law, including human rights violations and abuses committed by all parties across Afghanistan.
- Work with the UN to urgently pass a resolution at the UN Security Council, calling on the Taliban to uphold international human rights law and guarantee protection from reprisals to those most at risk, including HRDs, journalists, and women leaders in Afghanistan.
- Provide accountability and remedies, including compensation, to Afghan survivors of torture by U.S. government personnel and military contractors as well as to civilian casualties of U.S. operations; and commit that the U.S.’s future operations, if any, in Afghanistan will reflect its obligations under international human rights law.