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Afghan Refugees Suffer from Hate and Prejudice in Pakistan and Beyond

By
Ayesha Jehangir
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Afghan refugees wait outside an EU-funded medical clinic in a refugee camp, one of many in Pakistan. © European Union, 2020 (photographer: Mallika Panorat)

Decades of conflict in Afghanistan has led to millions of Afghan refugees dispersed throughout the world, including over 3 million in Pakistan. Now, many face expulsion under the Pakistani government’s recent crackdown, which will enter its second phase on 15 April 2024, impacting at least 1.3 million Afghan refugees. 

The nation-wide crackdown was launched with full force and immediate effect on 15 September 2023, creating a humanitarian emergency, particularly in regions closer to the Durand Line – the 2,640-kilometer colonial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the next three months, some 400,000 Afghan refugees were forcibly repatriated to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. This is the highest number of refugees expelled from Pakistan within a brief period. 

During this time, there were reports that Pakistan had also begun arresting Afghan refugees, and while the state narrative claimed that only undocumented refugees were being arrested, there were reports of police harassing and illegally detaining Afghan refugees despite possessing valid documents. Some refugees complained that the Pakistani government was intentionally delaying the registration renewal process, despite its scheduled commencement in June 2023. Most recently, The Guardian reported that some Pakistani officials were illegally charging an ‘exit fee’ of as much as $830 from each Afghan refugee who had fled persecution by the Taliban after the fall of Kabul in August 2021 and sought refuge in Pakistan.

Local journalists interested in covering the crisis at Torkham and Chamman – two of the largest checkpoints on the Durand Line – were reportedly halted by a boundary line marked by local security officials. This measure prevents journalists from approaching and filming refugees. The lack of open access to assembly points where these refugees gather and live in tents for days, sometimes weeks, before being forcibly repatriated, compromises public interest journalism, insofar as the right of these people to be heard and their suffering to be witnessed by both the proximate and distant audience.

This crackdown is taking place as Pakistan is getting ready for the country’ general elections – a time marked by political chaos and security turmoil. In the absence of an organized plan for Afghan refugees, their challenges have only worsened as they continue to live in temporary settlements in fear of being picked up by Pakistani police anytime. And yet, the Pakistani media remains conspicuously silent on the challenges faced by the largest refugee group in the country.

The muted response of Pakistanis to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees over the last few months mirrors the Pakistani media’s near-absent coverage of the humanitarian toll of forced repatriation. This is despite social media platforms being flooded with witness accounts of refugees testifying that Pakistani police officials were destroying their valid Proof of Registration cards (issued to documented Afghan refugees) in an attempt to ‘round up Afghan refugees’. However, social media alone cannot substitute journalism that exposes human rights violations and holds power centers accountable. Due to the perceived ‘enemy’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’ images of Afghan refugees in the Pakistani media, and their proliferation into the broader public conversation, their digital testimonies are deemed ‘fake’ and fail to move public opinion on the issue. 

In a conflict or crisis, citizens often look to the media to determine who is to blame, shaping broader public opinion. The way Pakistani media strategically portrays Afghan refugees develops a frame through which the Pakistani public understands and responds to their forced repatriation. As the public sifts through information in the digital realm, from sources of varying quality and accuracy, figuring out who is responsible for what can become a complicated undertaking. In the light of this logic, Afghan refugees are an easy target of the Pakistani media that promotes the narrative of the political and military elite. Afghan refugees in Pakistan are framed as a threat and burden, a crisis imaginary: a framework developed by LSE’s Lilie Chouliaraki and her co-author Myria Georgiou. Writing in the context of Europe, they argue that a crisis imaginary presents migration and asylum seeking as a sudden, shocking and unmanageable event that puts “us” under pressure, generating what David Shariatmadari calls “the toxic metaphors of the migration debate.”

An example of this was witnessed in the western media’s coverage of the refugee exodus from Ukraine during the Russia-Ukraine War (February 2022–present). Whether it was Charlie D’Agata of CBS News who described Ukraine as “relatively civilised, relatively European” in comparison to countries like Iraq and Afghanistan or Peter Dobbie from Al Jazeera English, who remarked on live TV, “these are prosperous middle-class people…  these are not obviously refugees getting away from the Middle East” or NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella who said, “to put it bluntly, these are not refugees from Syria, these are refugees from Ukraine…. They’re Christian, they’re white, they’re very similar” – media coverage exposed the structural biases and reproduced what Lilie Chouliaraki calls a hierarchy of human life, in which some people’s lives and their suffering are represented as more deserving than others. 

In my new book, I show how such routinely accommodated narratives of race, religion and security are a symbolic manifestation of the cataclysmic power that presents refugees – and in the context of my book Afghan refugees – through a crisis imaginary to build a ‘truth’ for the audiences that through reinforcement becomes an incontestable reality for the public. In doing this, I present a theoretical account of peace journalism as a deliberative practice. I explain how, through deliberation, peace journalism questions media bias and negative coverage, and has the potential to encourage the public to get involved and speak up.

I also note that the re-articulation of deliberativeness in journalism practice is fundamental to promoting critical thinking among the audience, especially on issues that are perceived as the problems of the ‘other’. In the absence of a deliberative peace journalism practice in Pakistan, Afghan refugees will continue to be framed as a ‘burden’, ‘enemy’ and a ‘threat’, similar to the crisis imaginary perception of refugees seen in Europe. This perception legitimizes their de-humanisation and forced repatriation, to an extent that the only legitimate way for Afghan refugees to exist in the Pakistani media narrative is by being physically absent.

For more information, see the author’s latest book, Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace (Routledge, 2024)

This Week in Peace #26: March 29

By
Peace News Staff
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A Filipino fisherman in the South China Sea, near the coast of the Philippines. Photo by Anjo Cerdeña on Unsplash

Welcome back to This Week in Peace, our weekly summary of events in global peacebuilding. 

This week, we cover a ceasefire vote at the UN, new negotiations in Colombia, and the important need for deescalation in the South China Sea and on the Israeli-Lebanese border, in order to prevent the out

UN Security Council finally calls for a ceasefire in Gaza – but the protracted process highlights need for reform to be a true peacebuilding body 

Last week, we reported on an important shift at the UN – where the United States finally shifted its position to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. This crisis has reaffirmed the politicized nature of the Security Council, with the permanent veto system preventing its use as an effective institution. When Russia launched a brutal and unprovoked invasion of its neighbor, it was protected by its veto, and that of China. Up until now, the US had been using its Security Council veto to protect Israel, using its veto to prevent any resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire from passing. When it introduced one of its own, it was promptly vetoed by Russia and China last Friday. Finally, a compromise resolution passed on Monday, calling for an immediate ceasefire, after the US abstained in a rare move. Security Council reform has been a long-running debate, but the past few years have shown that it is more urgent than ever – as politics have returned the body to a Cold War-era rhetorical battleground instead of an institution protecting and building peace. 

Despite the flawed and protracted process that led to its passage, the ceasefire resolution was an important turning point in the global response to Israel’s war on Gaza. It was a rare display of unity which emphasized the urgent crisis facing Palestinian civilians. Unfortunately, talks in Qatar between representatives of Israel and Hamas ended once again, as the two sides were unwilling to agree on a compromise plan for a ceasefire. Palestinian civilians desperately need an end to the fighting, and for Israel to avoid a potentially catastrophic operation in Rafah, but that will require both sides to return to negotiations and reach an agreement. With Palestiniansf facing famine, and Israel’s failure to allow in potentially life-saving aid, an agreement cannot come soon enough.

We recently began a series with the Alliance for Middle East Peace which focuses on the peacebuilders working to build peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which you can read here.

Colombia’s peace initiative gains a surprising new participant 

Peace News has reported frequently on the progress of Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” initiative, which aims to end the decades-long internal conflict in Colombia. A key part of the undertaking is the willingness of Petro’s government to sit down with all involved armed groups remaining in the country. While there have been some successes, none have matched the 2016 peace deal with the FARC, the largest guerilla group in Colombia. Recently, the program has faced numerous setbacks, but received a boost this week. The country’s largest criminal group, the Gaitanista Self Defense Forces of Colombia, also known as the Gulf Clan, accepted Petro’s invitation to join talks. The group, which was formed by former right-wing paramilitaries, has thousands of armed members and makes billions of dollars a year through smuggling, and has been seen as one of the major obstacles to peace in the country. Colombia’s laws differentiate between criminal and insurgent groups, and the Gulf Clan is classified as the former – which could limit the impact of these upcoming talks. However, this could be an important step forward for peace in Colombia, where well-armed criminal groups have been fighting the government for decades. 

Read some of our past stories on Colombia here. 

An urgent need for deescalation in two persistent flashpoints

With three devastating wars already underway – Sudan’s civil war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s war in Gaza, the risk of further global conflict remains high. In the South China Sea, where multiple countries have overlapping territorial claims, China’s aggressive actions continue to risk conflict with the Philippines, an ally of the US. China unilaterally claims much of the sea as its own territory, and has deployed its coast guard around a disputed shoal with a Filipino presence. A recent incident saw Filipino sailors injured after Chinese coast guard vessels used a water cannon on a ship in the area, an escalation of long-running tensions in the area. A 2016 international ruling invalidated China’s extensive claims, but Beijing and numerous regional powers maintain their claims to territory outside of their internationally-recognized waters. These recent actions risk further escalating the dispute, and given the alliance between the two any conflict between China and the Philippines would draw in the United States, risking a broader global conflict. 


Another potential flashpoint is southern Lebanon and northern Israel, where Hezobollah and Israel continue to trade strikes across the border. This week, several were killed on both sides, as the risk of escalation remained high. Considering the massive civilian cost of Israel’s war in Gaza, Lebanon’s ongoing economic and political crisis, and Hezbollah’s position as a strong political and paramilitary actor in the country, war must be prevented at all costs to avoid yet another devastating war in the region. The US, Israel’s main backer, has made it clear it opposes a war with Lebanon, and has worked to mediate between the two governments, but the continued exchanges of fire mean that the risk of future conflict remains elevated – and a third war between Israel and militants in Lebanon – after 1982 and 2006 – would be disastrous for both countries and for the wider region.

Israeli and Palestinian Healthcare Cooperation Builds Bridges Across Divides During Conflict, Addressing the Urgent Needs of Women and Children in the West Bank

By
Walter Ruby
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Project Rozana supports a dynamic, multi-disciplinary team that provides much needed health services to women and children in the West Bank.

The team of Palestinian female healthcare workers, composed of a gynecologist, general practitioner, midwife, nurses, a physiotherapist, nutritionist, and a psychologist, represent Women4Women (W4W), a program founded in 2021. The program has continued to function in recent months, despite the war taking place only 100km away. These women travel from their homes every weekday morning to serve women in remote villages.

The ability of W4W to accomplish these goals, despite the barriers they face every day, is enabled by its cooperation with Sheba Beyond, which provides access to the medical services and experts of Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv through advanced telemedicine technologies. Dr. Avi Tsur, director of Women’s Health Innovation at Sheba Beyond, explained, “This is an example of Israelis and Palestinians working together creatively to assure better health outcomes for patients in need.” 

On a recent morning, the women, stylish in their sunglasses and headscarves, greeted each other with warm smiles and hugs as they loaded a hand-held ultrasound machine and fetal monitor, heart rate and blood pressure monitors, glucose checker, medication, and a computer tablet, into the trunk of a silver 8-seater 4×4. Their destination was a remote village in the southwestern portion of the West Bank, formerly about an hour’s drive from Hebron, but now more than two hours away due to newly installed military roadblocks.

Despite the increased commute time and the gnawing fear for the well-being of the loved ones they leave at home every morning, the mood of the riders in the van was suffused with camaraderie and felt determinedly upbeat.  

“Yalla, let’s go, girls” said the team leader, Amani, a physiotherapist by training. Soon the 4-wheel drive was bouncing along on a potholed, semi-paved road amidst rocky olive tree covered hillsides. Meanwhile, about 30 women and small children; including teenagers, pregnant women and others of child-bearing age, and grandmothers in their 70’s, had already gathered in a makeshift community center, patiently awaiting the arrival of the team. 

What keeps them going? Each of the young women in the medical team understands they are performing an essential life-sustaining service; providing vital, free of charge health care to thousands of poor women and children in hard-to-reach villages around the southern West Bank, who otherwise would receive no health care at all.  Not only are these rural women living in a conflict zone where transportation is becoming ever-more difficult, but many are illiterate and living in a tradition-bound society in which they are often not allowed to leave their village without a male companion. 

W4W is one of the signature programs developed by Rozana, an international organization promoting access to quality healthcare through joint Palestinian and Israeli initiatives. Founded in 2013, Rozana has grown dramatically, becoming a major force on the healthcare scene by building productive relationships between hospitals and healthcare professionals in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. 

Presently, W4W serves six rural communities in Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli military control, including the delivery of primary and reproductive healthcare, as well as psychological services for women and children. While interacting with their patients in a culturally sensitive manner, the W4W team empowers them to make informed decisions about their own health and that of their children.

The W4W team’s workload continues to grow as they are seeing more than three times as many patients than they did before the war. Rozana‘s Director of Programming Diana Shehadeh-Nama said of her W4W multidisciplinary team, “For me, they are quite simply superwomen, who summon the strength to go out to the front lines of the healthcare crisis every morning and do everything possible to save lives and offer hope to the hard-pressed women and children they serve.”

Indeed, what motivates members of the W4W interdisciplinary team to keep it up day after day? Dr. Anna Dofesh, the team’s gynecologist, remarked, “I have been working in the field for 20 years, and still feel blessed to be in the position to help people. Team nurse Shurukh Aqel, commented, “I love what I do. I am keenly aware that our being there helps our patients greatly to improve their physical health and stabilize their psychic well-being.” 

Rozana CEO Ronit Zimmer emphasizes, “Health care is a human right and must be accessible and delivered with kindness and respect, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Fulfilling that vision is the mission of the W4W medical team and despite the enormous odds, they are doing it brilliantly.”  

A Network of Peace Journalists are rewriting the narrative in Northern Nigeria

By
Mohammed Ibrahim
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Ibrahima Yakubu, the Team Leader of NPJ, makes a point during a meeting. Image credit: Mohammed Ibrahim

Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people with more than 250 tribes and ethnic groups, has consistently made headlines due to various crises. In Northern Nigeria,  religious or tribal conflicts have resulted in the loss of countless lives and properties. Some blame the media for fueling societal divisions through biased and sectarian reporting.

In response to this, journalists with the Network of Peace Journalists (NPJ), with the assistance of non-governmental organizations including the Interfaith Mediation Center, Mercy Corps, and Kaduna State Peace Commission, have undergone training in peace journalism. They aim to use their training to foster peace and reconciliation rather than hate and division within society. 

Ibrahima Yakubu, the team leader of the NJP  in Northern Nigeria, emphasized the impact of peace-building training in mitigating conflicts and combating the spread of “fake news” on social media, while aiming to promote positive narratives:”We have been experiencing conflict reportage that destabilizes communities. It’s time to change the narrative by encouraging journalists to promote peace journalism.”

According to Yakubu, journalists in Nigeria have directly experienced the negative side of instability. As such, their role is to ensure that they promote peace through their newspapers, broadcast radio stations, and online news platforms.Yakubu also advocates for journalists to write personal blogs, which he believes can strengthen the push towards assisting every citizen in promoting the ideas of peace journalism.

Andrew Mshelia, a Kaduna-based broadcast journalist and member of NPJ, highlighted the pivotal role of journalists in promoting peace in regions prone to religious and political tensions like Kaduna: “People believe us journalists, and they take our words seriously. It’s not just about holding the government accountable but also holding ourselves accountable.”

Mshelia highlights the importance of media agenda setting, in which the media can highlight not just what to think, but also what to think about. He emphasized the need to focus on stories that unite rather than divide, recognizing that peace is essential for societal stability and progress.

Members of the NPJ. Image credit: Mohammed Ibrahim

Mayen Etim, the Deputy Team Leader of the group, echoed the sentiment, emphasizing that peace is paramount for societal advancement. She stressed the need for journalists to promote peace, as their words can either foster harmony or ignite conflict.

“So for us journalists, it is imperative that we seek peace. If we set any ethnic group against the other and the country is set ablaze, we will be running helter-skelter…. we should remember to write to live because if you write and you set the nation ablaze, you will also be affected,” she said.

She added that the local people are tired of hearing bad news in the media which is why they are working hard to train more journalists to embrace peace journalism, to preach peace, speak peace, talk peace, and work for peace.

Samson Auta, a  Development Practitioner and Early Warning Early Response Specialist (EWER) said the media is key to engaging the community and the government on how to address issues that can lead to crisis or conflict in society. The EWER system is a way to identify threats at an early stage in communities and initiate a rapid response to mitigate conflicts.

Auta believes that journalists should be supporters of peace because they are also members of the community, and would themselves benefit from building peace in every community. “We noted that in the past most violence that happened, we discovered that the journalists contributed to it directly or indirectly due to their reportage.” Referring to the activities of the NPJ team, he said,  “We could see their work so far, they have become part of the peace professionals by avoiding headlines that will escalate violence or tensions.”.

The group is actively seeking partnerships with organizations, aiming to expand peace journalism training beyond Kaduna to other parts of Nigeria. As journalists, they understand the power of their pens and the responsibility that comes with it. By promoting peace, they aim to not only shape the present but also pave the way for a brighter and more unified future for Nigeria.

This Week in Peace #25: March 22

By
Peace News Staff
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The United Nations building in New York, where the US has introduced a draft resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Photo by Tomas Eidsvold on Unsplash

Welcome back to This Week in Peace, our weekly summary of events in global peacebuilding. 

This week, we discuss ongoing efforts to end the civil war in Sudan, Armenia’s determination to find peace with Azerbaijan, the small but vocal Russian opposition putting themselves at risk to end the war on Ukraine, and a noticeable shift in American policy towards the war in Gaza at the UN. 

US hopes to restart peace talks in Sudan – but faces many obstacles 

The ongoing civil war in Sudan continues, as Sudanese civilians face an ever-escalating humanitarian crisis. Nearly a year since the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began fighting, neither side has found a decisive advantage, millions have been displaced, and the country and capital city of Khartoum remain divided between the two factions. The newly-appointed US envoy, Tom Perrielo, hopes to restart talks at the end of Ramadan, but that will depend on the willingness of the leaders of both factions to participate. Previous talks in Jeddah, moderated by the US and Saudi Arabia, led to an agreement that quickly fell apart. The RSF is the successor of militias notorious for committing crimes against humanity in the Darfur region in the early 2000s, and is backed by the UAE and other regional actors. The army held power for decades during the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir and has also committed numerous crimes against civilians. The influence of Islamist factions mirrors the ideological mix of the Bashir years, and alleged backing from Iran could help escalate the conflict further. Neither side has the interests of the Sudanese people in mind, and it is crucial that the fighting end in order to protect civilians and prevent further atrocities from taking place.

Read our past stories on Sudan here.

Armenia’s PM makes his desire for peace clear 

Past editions of his series have written about efforts to negotiate a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbors who have fought several wars over disputed territory since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Over the past few months, talks have failed to find a final agreement. Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, recently demonstrated his willingness to build peace, and the risks associated with failing to agree on a deal, when he said that Armenia must return disputed territory it has held since the 1990s, in order to prevent another war. The military balance between the two states has shifted decisively in Azerbaijan’s favor in recent years, fueled by energy revenues and Turkish weapons. Russia is either unwilling or unable to protect its supposed ally in Armenia, which has turned to the West in recent years. Many EU member states rely on Azerbaijan to replace Russian gas, and military action against Armenia in 2020 and in the formerly disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2023 were met with a muted international response. A final, formal peace deal would be an important step towards ending a long-running conflict, and Pashinyan’s willingness to make concessions presents the best chance in a generation to make it a reality. 

Read more stories about this issue here. 

Positive changes in US policy on Gaza, but still much work to be done

This week, the US released a draft UN resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, in a significant shift from its past defense of Israel. The draft, which calls for an end to fighting accompanied by the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, marks a departure from previous American policy at the UN, where it has blocked similar resolutions in the past. As the war in Gaza continues, and Israel continues to insist on carrying out what could be a highly destructive attack on Rafah, where over one million Palestinians are sheltering, the US is one of the few international actors that can hypothetically help influence Israel to pause fighting. Negotiations for a ceasefire have collapsed several times in 2024, but hopefully efforts such as this will help to provide extra momentum that can lead to an end to fighting, protection and aid for Palestinian civilians, and the release of remaining hostages. 

We recently began a series with the Alliance for Middle East Peace which focuses on the peacebuilders working to build peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which you can read here.

Russians risk their livelihoods to protest rigged elections 

This week, Russian president Vladimir Putin was reelected with an improbable 87% of the vote in elections that were clearly rigged, and vowed to continue his war in Ukraine. Despite the preordained result and crackdown on free speech, which has seen any anti-war and pro-peace messages criminalized and met with harsh repression, there were numerous acts of resistance and protest, many in support of peace with Ukraine. Across Russia, people protested at the ballot box, spoiling their own ballots, or sometimes dumping ink or burning ones that had already been cast. Many more, including hundreds if not thousands of Russian expats, crowded polling stations at noon on the first day of voting as an act of protest endorsed by prominent opposition leaders, many calling for peace – more common in foreign countries where there was no risk of violence from state security forces. While these acts of protest did little to affect the final result, they are crucial in demonstrating that the Kremlin’s war agenda does not have total popular support. The dire situation in occupied Ukraine – where early voting was accompanied by the presence of soldiers and the implicit threat of violence – illustrates why this is so important. In those territories, illegally annexed by Russia following its invasion, the Ukrainians that remain face the threat of deportation, kidnapping, and torture, a stark illustration of the need to end the war as soon as possible. 

Read more stories about this conflict here.

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