Category: Uncategorized (Page 11 of 20)

By 5 p.m. on September 29^th, Afghanistan became a black box. Flights were canceled. Banks closed. Business slowed. Thousands of women and girls reliant on online education wondered what their alternatives might be. The Taliban, like the rest of the country, was silent. Forty-eight hours later, as Afghans welcomed the Internet’s return, many of them wondered why their country had gone dark.

“One of the big reasons that the Internet was cut off was those online lessons,” said Abdul Farid Salangi, founder of Woman Online University. After the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, the regime barred women from secondary school and college. Many turned to online classes to continue their education. For these students, the Internet is a singular link to the outside world. As rumors swirled of an imminent Internet shutdown, female students worried about losing the opportunity to study. “Most of them said their option would be suicide,” said Salangi, founder of Woman Online University.

On October 1^st, Afghans took to the streets to celebrate the return of the Internet. People connected to relatives abroad. Media coverage resumed. Salangi’s students reconnected to classes, their relief mixed with fear. “I am scared right now. It can happen again and again. I have no trust in the government,” said a student at Woman Online University, who requested anonymity to protect her safety. To her and many of her classmates, the Internet shutdown represented a direct attack on female education.

In the two weeks leading up to the nationwide shutdown, disruptions crept across the country. At first, Taliban leaders were clear about their motives for cutting off connection. On September 16^th, the Taliban cut off fiber-optic cable in the northern Balkh province “for the purpose of preventing immoral acts,” a spokesperson said on X. Two days later, the shutdown spread to five more provinces in the north and east. Residents of the capital doubted the shutdown would reach them. Once it did, they worried it would never lift. At this point, the Taliban, like the rest of the country, was silent.

“The speculation is that this is not just about morality. This is about control,” said Lyse Doucet, chief international correspondent for the BBC, on that publication’s Newshour. The Taliban denied responsibility in the nationwide shutdown, blaming tired fiber-optic cables in need of replacement.

The earlier disruptions left mobile internet, an expensive and patchy alternative to fiber-optic, (Wi-Fi) intact. But streaming packages exceed the budgets of most Afghans, a vast majority of whom live in poverty, according to a 2023 report by the UNDP. Cheap alternatives for getting online sustain essential services in the country. But recently, the Taliban has restricted telecommunications, citing concerns about vice. Taliban leaders have expressed concern about flirting online and watching pornography. Critics see this as a veil for the regime’s campaign to silence dissent.

In the future, the Taliban may develop techniques to block specific types of media from entering Afghanistan’s online world, said Amanda Meng, an analyst at IODA, an Internet connectivity tracker. Today, the country lacks the hardware required for this level of censorship.

Still, the Taliban is censoring citizens in overt ways. In late August, the Taliban ordered universities to stop assigning books by women. Last year, women were banned from the only two courses of study still available to them at the time—midwifery and nursing. On Saturday, the Taliban banned cellphones on university campuses. Meanwhile, journalists are at risk. A joint report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the UN Human Rights Office documented over 300 human rights violations against media professionals from August 2021 to September 2024. Last year, a journalist told DW that the Taliban prevents coverage of crime and violence.

Not all Talibs endorse such restrictions. The Internet shutdown and its aftermath exposed ideological differences between the traditional faction in Kandahar, led by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, and more progressive officials. On October 1^st, the Taliban’s chief minister and minister of telecommunications ordered the Internet’s restoration. Akhundzada endorses the shutdown. Younger Talibs understand how a shutdown of such magnitude could backfire.

“There are many in the Taliban who say, we simply have to be part of the modern world. We want Afghanistan to develop. Could this be a moment of reckoning?” said Lyse Doucet, chief international correspondent for the BBC on that publication’s Newshour podcast. The vast majority of Talibs, she said, oppose the regime’s hardline edicts. Orders out of Kandahar, where the most traditional faction resides, eclipse the regime’s more moderate crop.

In recent months, top officials have faced consequences for opposing Akhundzada, the hardline leader, and his restrictions on women. On January 20^th, senior Taliban official Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai criticized bans on female education in his speech at a graduation ceremony in the Khost province. “We are being unjust to 20 million people,” he said. Soon after, Akhundzada ordered Stanikzai’s arrest and exile. The senior official left for the UAE, citing health concerns to  local media. In December, a suicide bomber killed the Taliban’s refugee Minister Khalil Haqqani, spurring rumors that a rival Taliban official ordered the assassination.

The Taliban’s mounting restrictions on freedom have spurred international outrage. On Monday, the UN Rights Council created an Afghanistan Accountability Body. The EU-led resolution passed with consensus, signaling a moment of unity against the Taliban’s violations of human rights. There is a growing recognition of “gender apartheid,” the systematic suppression of women’s rights, said Kimmy Coseteng, from Right to Learn Afghanistan, a Canadian group.

At the same time, some doubt the power of international pressure to sway the Taliban. Doucet said on the BBC that criticism from the outside can even compel the Taliban to double down on restrictions. But the recent Internet shutdown may have exacerbated internal divisions that may threaten the regime’s stability. Change, Doucet said, “has to come from within the Taliban.”

In the first hour of Nuremberg, Major Airey Neve, a British officer captured and escaped twice by the Gestapo, who later joined the International Military Tribunal interviews each of the Nazi generals as they await trial. Their reactions vary: some lash out in anger and denial, while others listen reluctantly, but understand the seriousness of the situation, as their fate is no longer in their own hands. These early exchanges foreshadowed the verdicts to come—some generals were hanged to death, others faced imprisonment, and a few walked free.

Watching the film, I felt a complex mix of emotions. I hadn’t known much about the Nuremberg Trials before, so seeing the generals receive justice made me optimistic about the future of humanity. Yet in order to feel that sense of justice, I also felt a sense of horror and grief. One of the most disturbing moments came when the court screens footage of concentration camps: heaps of dead bodies in mass graves, survivors reduced to skeletons. Later testimonies detailing medical experiments in freezing tanks, children thrown into furnaces when gas ran out, and a train of 230 French women sent to Auschwitz, only 49 returning alive. The magnitude of cruelty is almost unimaginable.

The film’s setting in Nuremberg is also symbolic. The movie mentions that Nuremberg is considered Hitler’s “spiritual center,” it was where the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jewish people of their rights. Holding the trials there made poetic sense, the birthplace of Nazi ideology became the site of its judgment. Yet, even this city suffered under Hitler’s reign, bombed and 30,00 people trapped beneath rubble.

Additional scenes that stood out to me included when the Governor-General of Poland mentions he opposed the persecution of Jews but stayed silent, similar to an alleged assasination attempt towards Hitler by his good friend Albert Speer. His cowardice mirrors the broader themes identified by Captain Gustav Gilbert, the Jewish-American psychologist assigned to monitor the defendants. Gilbert observes three traits that enabled Hitler’s rise: blind obedience to authority, propaganda-fueled hatred towards Jews,, and a profound lack of empathy. The irony that a Jewish man held psychological power over these war criminals underscores the film’s moral tension—especially when Alec Baldwin’s Justice Jackson reminds Gilbert that he can influence whether the defendants own up to their crimes or hide behind obedience.

The film also exposes the hypocrisy at the core of Nazi ideology. Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second hand man, played by Brian Cox, claims that he and Hitler were unaware of the full scale of the killings, which I think is absurd. To play devil’s advocate, maybe they didn’t know.  Ernst Kaltenbrunner, who was part of the camps in Auschwitz, boasted about accelerating the process of killing Jewish people, finding his solution through the use of carbon monoxide. He compared it to exterminating rats, all while insisting he did not see this as torturing Jews. One general even remarked on Hitler’s vegetarianism, his refusal to harm animals standing in grotesque contrast to his sanctioning of genocide.

In the end, Göring and another general chose suicide over facing execution, proof that even in defeat, they sought control. As Göring’s character declares, “The victors will always be the judges; the vanquished will always be the accused.” Yet their deaths underscored the final irony, the very men who showed no mercy to others refused to confront justice when it was their turn.

Last week, German Chancellor Fredrich Merz delayed his government’s decision on whether to approve a package of EU sanctions on Israel. Merz said earlier this month that he would present his coalition’s joint position at an Oct. 1 summit of EU leaders in Copenhagen. But Merz’s delay makes it unclear when or whether Germany will reach a firm decision.

“The history of German support [for Israel] is so great that going for EU-wide sanctions is against the history of the relationship,” said Daniel Marwecki, a lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong whose research focuses on German-Israeli relations. “Germany is not going much farther than it already has.” 

The sanction package, introduced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in mid-September, would impose tariffs on an estimated £5.8 billion of imported goods from Israel, while also sanctioning two far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The Commission also proposed sanctions on 10 Hamas members. To pass, the proposal requires approval by a qualified majority ruling. 

One reason for the Merz administration’s stalling may be the agreement reached on Monday between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the Israel-Hamas war, according to Marwecki. Though it is yet uncertain whether Hamas will accept all of the conditions in the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan, many are optimistic that a ceasefire is finally on the horizon.

“For Germany, the ideal outcome would be an acceptance of that plan, and that would allow the government to get out of the current predicament of having to find a tougher, more European stance,” Marwecki explained. In recent months, many other European countries have faltered in their support of Israel, citing human rights violations. 

But Germany has taken a hard-line pro-Israel stance since just after World War II. What would it take for that to change?

Germany faces pressure to change its Israel approach

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Germany has faced increasing internal and external pressure to revise its stalwart stance. Hundreds of thousands of Germans have taken to the streets to protest their government’s military support of Israel. 

According to a poll by public broadcaster ZDF, 76 percent of German voters believe that Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip is unjustified. A YouGov poll released this week showed that 62 percent of German voters believe Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide.

But public sentiment and foreign policy are often misaligned. Dr. Naama Lutz, an Israeli scholar of migration at the Social Science Center in Berlin, has watched public sentiment shift since the start of the war and seen the pro-Palestinian protest movement bloom. “But it just kind of feels like a drop in the ocean,” she said. “The core of Germany’s foreign policy is pretty unwavering in its support of Israel.”

The country is also facing external pressure, growing isolated among its Western allies, many of whom have recently recognized a Palestinian state. Germany has not taken this step, and has thus far avoided applying the term “genocide” to Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

There has been at least one significant policy shift. In August, Germany said it would no longer issue licenses for weapons “clearly usable in Gaza.” According to reporting by Politico, this language suggested that other types of weapons would still move forward, which they recently did — last week, Germany approved a batch of arms exports to Israel again. 

Still, Germany’s history is not easily shaken off, nor is its national identity easily disentangled from that of Israel. 

Germany’s reason of state

After World War II, Germany needed to regain standing in the eyes of the international community. Supporting Israel as a Jewish state was an obvious way for Germany to symbolically and materially absolve its guilt.

Marwecki explained that Germany’s very “staatsraison” — or, reason for statehood — was formed via the way it used Israeli nationalism to create its own, making Germany the only country whose “staatsraison” is another country’s “staatsraison.”

Lutz noted that even today, the German citizenship test — which she herself took in June — requires applicants to check two boxes: one denouncing antisemitism, and the other accepting the legitimacy of Israeli statehood. 

“Everyone has to check this box,” she explained. “This is a very core principle of who [Germany] is. It’s very open and straightforward.”

According to Marwecki, when Germany supported Israel industrially and militarily after World War II, it was born not out of a true moral reckoning, but rather out of a self-serving need for rehabilitation and reintegration into the Western block. 

Former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer hinted at this on German television in 1965, when he said, “We had done the Jews so much injustice, committed such crimes against them, that somehow this had to be expiated or repaired if somehow we were to regain our international standing.” 

Thus, Germany’s aid was instrumental both in establishing Israeli statehood and re-establishing its own. The irony is that the formation of Israel led to a massive Palestinian refugee crisis in 1948. According to Marwecki, some say this renders the “Palestinian problem” also a German problem. 

Nowadays in Berlin, a common protest sign reads, “Free Palestine from German Guilt.” Activists argue that Germany’s longstanding support of Israel and commitment to preventing future atrocities after the Holocaust should give it even greater reason to support Palestinians in this conflict.

This leaves Germany at a crossroads. “They know what’s happening in Gaza can’t go on, and now they have to wash their hands clean,” Marwecki said.  

But with a ceasefire deal on the table and an enduring staatsraison, this may not be an area in which Germany feels it can afford to budge, including on the EU sanctions. “When it comes to anything that sanctions Israel or targets the economy as a whole,” Marwecki said, “I just don’t think Germany will support that.”

Last Wednesday, a German delegation traveled to Kabul to speak with Taliban government representatives about Germany’s efforts to return Afghan migrants with criminal records to Afghanistan. The meeting reflects the German government’s growing reliance on the Taliban, which it does not officially recognize but which it has relied on to help carry out its migrant deportation program. 

“This kind of diplomacy with the Taliban legitimizes terror and oppression and betrays those who have worked with us for a democratic Afghanistan,” Green Party representative Luise Amtsberg told Tageszeitung.

 The German government’s Afghan deportation efforts are one element of its broader hardline policies on immigration, which it has adopted due to pressure from far-right, anti-immigrant parties such as Alternative für Deutscheland (AfD). To carry out these restrictive policies, the German government has become an uncomfortable bedfellow of the Taliban, an organization widely condemned for its human rights abuses and restrictive treatment of women. Human rights organizations and other analysts have denounced both the government’s deportation agenda and its collaboration with the Taliban. 

The Wednesday meeting involved a senior member of Germany’s Interior Ministry and senior Taliban officials including Mohammed Nabi Omari, the first deputy to Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani and a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner. 

A History of Deportation

Chancellor Friederich Merz’s government has scaled up efforts to deport certain Afghan migrants since it took power in February. Around 400,000 people who were born in Afghanistan currently live in Germany, which has been a center for Afghan migration since the Soviet-Afghan war in 1979.

The current government successfully carried out its first flight of deported migrants in August, removing 81 Afghans from Germany. “These are Afghan men who are legally required to leave the country and who have a criminal record,” the Interior Ministry said at the time.

Germany received international criticism for the move. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, stated in a press conference that it “was not appropriate to return people to Afghanistan” given continued human rights violations in the country. 

 Under international conventions, it is unlawful to deport people to their home country if it is likely they will experience human rights violations in that country. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch claim that the Taliban’s rule has made Afghanistan an unsafe place for deportations, and that Germany may be violating international law by deporting people to the country, even if they have received criminal convictions.

 “For Afghanistan, it’s easiest to make that point that every return would amount to a violation of human rights non-return obligations,” said Julian Lehmann, Program Manager at the Global Public Policy Institute.

 Nonetheless, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has since signaled his intention to accelerate the deportation of Afghan migrants, including to Syria. “My goal is to deport regularly and systematically,” he told DPA. 

The August flight was the second to have taken place since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz, deported 28 Afghan migrants in August 2024, following backlash after an Afghan migrant killed a police officer in a mass stabbing.

Before the Taliban took power, deportations of this kind were common. Between 2016 and 2021, Germany removed over 1,100 Afghan migrants from its borders.

A report from the time found that more than 90 percent of migrants deported to Afghanistan faced some level of violence upon their return.

Germany suspended its deportation program after the Taliban took control of the Afghan government, given the danger posed by deportation.

The Political Landscape

Merz’s government has made migrant deportations one of its core priorities. The ruling “grand coalition,” consisting of the center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CDU) alliance and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), ran on a campaign pledge to “start deporting people to Afghanistan and Syria, beginning with criminals and dangerous individuals.”

Striking a balance on the issue of migration has been a challenge for the ideologically diverse coalition. To Martin Sökefeld, a migration scholar at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, its conservative voters have been pushed to the right on immigration by inflammatory rhetoric from the far right, which has identified deportation as an effective tool to control migration. “It has become a highly emotional and symbolic issue to try to deport people, particularly to Afghanistan and also to Syria,” Sökefeld said.

At the same time, CDU also faces pressure from the left to take a strong stance against AfD’s proposed solutions to that question, which the left describes as extreme. 

Lehmann said that CDU’s actions, including its collaboration with the Taliban, demonstrates that the party failed to strike this balance, and has instead followed an approach proposed by the AfD. “They haven’t walked the line,” he said. “They’ve passed it.”

Taliban Talks

Wednesday’s meeting is the latest evolution of a complex relationship between Germany and the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

On the one hand, Germany refuses to recognize the Taliban government because of its human rights violations. On the other, it has relied on the Taliban to carry out its deportation agenda. According to Georg Menz, a migration professor at Old Dominion University, it is difficult to facilitate the kind of deportations that Germany seeks without maintaining an open line of communication in Kabul. 

To balance these competing priorities, Merz has claimed that his government’s collaboration with the Taliban falls short of official recognition because it is of a technical, not political, nature. During the two deportation flights under the Scholz and Merz governments, Germany stated that it relied on communication with “technical contacts” in Kabul, mediated through Qatar. “Rather than formally recognize the Taliban and negotiate with it directly, Germany used Qatar as a go-between,” said Michelle Pace, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and a professor in global studies at Denmark’s Roskilde University. 

Similarly, the German government emphasized that Wednesday’s meeting consisted of “technical talks” concerning the deportations.

Despite these moves, Germany has remained adamant that it does not intend to recognize the Taliban. “Diplomatic recognition of the Taliban regime is not up for discussion. That is simply out of the question,” Merz said at a press conference.

Nonetheless, the Taliban may yield further gains from its assistance to Germany in the long term. “In the absence of diplomatic recognition, Afghanistan’s Taliban government would welcome engagement on migration management as a way to build rapport with the West,” Pace stated.

“Engagement will likely come at the expense of those seeking protection from the Taliban regime,” she added. 

But potential consequences to deported individuals has not stopped the Merz government from pursuing deportations. To Sökefeld, it can react with a simple response: “It’s not our issue anymore.”

Immigration enforcement efforts are escalating dramatically in New Jersey, disrupting farming operations and leaving crops to rot. Fearing immigration-related arrests, farmworkers are failing to report for work, causing a labor shortage which NJ farmers say could lead to farm closures and higher prices for produce. 

“We’ve seen people losing their jobs because the farm owners don’t want to be involved, migrant labor is becoming a high cost to the farms. And the workers are afraid to drive to work because they’re stopped in their cars by ICE,” said Katherin Zepeda, a representative from CATA (El Comité de Apoyo a Los Trabajadores Agricolos, or, “The Farmworker Support Committee”), a New Jersey farmers’ association focused on Latino immigrant farmworkers. “Local farms and family farms are struggling and suffering, and they will close. It’s a lot of fear on every side.” 

New Jersey’s farmers are not alone in their concerns. In major agricultural states including California, Pennsylvania, and New York, farmers are expressing similar hiring struggles. “New York’s small farms are beginning to feel the strain of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration,” Newsweek reported in September. 

The farming industry is reliant on foreign-born populations both state-wide and on a national scale. According to the USDA, 42% of U.S. crop workers are undocumented migrants. In New Jersey specifically, CATA estimates that up to 70% of farmworkers lack legal status. With the suspension of the 2024 Farmworker Protection Rule in June–– a Biden-era policy which expanded protections for migrant farmworkers on H-2A temporary visas–– and the Trump administration’s aggressive use of ICE for immigration-relatred arrests, farmers in New Jersey are beginning to raise concerns over labor shortages and operating costs. 

Since Trump’s inauguration, ICE has been racing to meet new White House arrest quotas for immigration violations nationwide, bolstered by a massive increase in funding through the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4th. While attorneys from the Trump administration denied the implementation of daily arrest quotas, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News in May that ICE would set a goal of a “minimum” of 3,000 arrests a day–– 10 times the number of daily arrests under the Biden administration. In states with high migrant populations, the ICE crackdown has typically been more severe. In the first six months of Trump’s presidency, arrests doubled in California and tripled in Florida, according to a June report by the New York Times. 

While New Jersey, which has the fifth-highest immigrant population in the nation, has not faced quite as dramatic an escalation in arrests, average daily ICE arrests in the state are already up by 73% from 2024, according to the New York Times’ research. The surge in arrests has had a destabilizing effect on migrant communities. 

“The tone for immigration arrests has definitely worsened in New Jersey, and our communities are scared,” said Hollis Painting, a representative of Catholic Charities’ “El Centro” organization in Trenton. El Centro provides assistance with health care, naturalization, and basic needs for migrants on Trenton’s South Broad Street, serving between 2 and 3 thousand individuals annually. “Rumors spreading and fear are making migrants afraid to leave their homes, much less report for work,” said Painting. 

Migrants in New Jersey and nationally are increasingly noticing ICE agents in their neighborhoods and workplaces. The promotion of an immigration enforcement “tip line” used by the agency has also led to a rising sense of suspicion and paranoia amongst migrant communities, according to advocates including Resistencia en Acción, a New Jersey organization which operates a hotline for migrants to help respond to ICE sightings. 

“We often have calls to our hotline, I would say at least two to three times a day, seven days a week….unmarked cars, ICE agents walking around an area, waiting outside their workplace, their homes,” said Ana Pazmiño, the executive director of Resistencía en Acción NJ, “90% of the time they don’t even have a search warrant, I would say. It’s basically them just looking to arrest as many people as they can.” 

ICE has already completed several major raids across New Jersey under Trump’s new bill. On July 8th, ICE arrested 20 individuals at an Alba Wine and Spirits warehousing facility in Edison. Later that month, on July 24th, Homeland Security officials stopped a van carrying a group of Guatemalan migrants to landscaping work in Princeton, detaining 15. Most recently, raids in Princeton and Jersey City resulted in the arrest of 9 Chilean nationals on September 19th. 

“The immigration response has been very harsh. There’s a lot of cruelty involved,” said Stephen Macedo, a professor of Politics at Princeton specializing in immigration policy. “The Biden administration made a grave error in allowing so much undocumented migration. The Trump administration is now taking liberties in responding to the issue and its enforcement measures have been cruel.”

The President responded to concerns about the way the new ICE quotas were affecting farmworker performance in a Truth Social post in June.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote. “This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

However, Congress has yet to provide a solution to the concerns of farmers nationwide. Rather, in response to protests over immigration enforcement in states including California and Oregon, the Trump administration is deploying the National Guard against its citizens. On Sunday, Trump sent 300 federalized members of the California National Guard to Oregon–– a decision Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called “reckless and authoritarian conduct,” according to the New York Times. The President previously activated more than 4,000 troops in California to address similar protests in June. 

“Until migrant workers feel secure, the farming industry in New Jersey will continue to suffer,” said Zepeda, on behalf of CATA. “I don’t know how long our local farms will survive.”

Of the approximately 12.3 million Syrian nationals who fled their homes in search of safety since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, one million have returned to Syria following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s fifty-year regime, reported the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) last week. The end of the precipitating military conflict – killing over half a million citizens and resulting in an estimated $117.7 billion in infrastructure damage – on December 8, 2024 leaves Syrian refugees around the world with a difficult question: To stay or to return?

Dr. Arzoo Osanloo, former Director of the Middle East Center at the University of Washington and current Princeton University Professor, says, “What would stand between somebody who fled their country and a very insecure situation in other countries would be whether [they] would face violence upon returning…Syria still has a lot of continuous unrest, conflict, and violence. Many, many people were forcibly displaced.” 

Former Associate Policy Analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, Samuel Davidoff-Gore, presents more questions that are of consequence to displaced refugees. “It’s about the basics of everyday life. Do I have housing? Do I have economic prospects? Do I have safety? Somewhere to work? Can my kids go to school? Is there potable water? Is there a possibility to see my family? And, most importantly, is this better than my current situation?”

Following the fall of the Assad regime, countries hosting Syrian refugees have initiated processes to incentivize their return. But, for many of the approximately 4.5 million Syrians displaced abroad, the prospect of going home remains daunting. Widespread poverty, the absence of functioning infrastructure systems, and the new Syrian government’s persecution of the Alawite minority make repatriation a complicated decision for displaced families, deepening fears of instability and deterring many from returning. These challenges have placed mounting pressure on international organizations to ensure safety and security for Syrians at home and abroad.

As millions of displaced Syrians consider their return, nations with high refugee populations across the world have taken steps to force Syrian nationals back to Syria. On September 19th, President Donald Trump announced the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrian nationals living in the U.S.. Additionally, members of Germany’s AfD party and the Austrian government have been vocal in their support for compensation for Syrian nationals returning to Syria. 

Middle Eastern nations with high populations of Syrian refugees, including Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, which together house over three million displaced Syrian nationals, have similarly introduced efforts for the forced return of Syrian nationals. Security forces in Lebanon and Turkey have raided and deported hundreds of Syrian refugees. Further, the lack of legal status for refugees in these nations leaves them in “increasingly untenable limbo.”

Davidoff-Gore warns of a continuation of this pattern following the fall of the Assad regime, “I think that you will certainly see folks on the far right trying to incentivize returns or trying to force deportations.”

According to the International Organization for Migration, 1.8 million Syrians displaced by the conflict have returned to their homes since December 2024. However, challenges for repatriating refugees, whether returning voluntarily or under pressure from their host nation, remain plentiful once they return to Syria. 

The Syrian economy has contracted by over 80% since the beginning of the war, with rising unemployment and inflation leading to a poverty rate over 90%. Infrastructure damage has resulted in nearly nonexistent schooling and healthcare systems.

“Syria, in particular, is extremely vulnerable,” Dr. Osanloo says. “Not only do they have the violent conflict that they’re still working through, but, in 2023, they had an earthquake, which also did tremendous infrastructural damage and harmed people.”

Returning refugees have found their homes and communities destroyed or occupied by others, in addition to living alongside the remnants of wartime dangers. The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) found that, between December 2024 and June 2025, over 900 people were killed in Syria by landmines and unexploded ordnance. 

Davidoff-Gore is skeptical of the ability of Syria’s transition government, led by the Sunni Islamist party Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to address these issues for repatriating citizens on its own. “They don’t have the resources. They don’t have infrastructure staff. So there’s a lot of work that needs to go into making it so that people feel safe.”

For many, the HTS-led transition government offers no assurance of safety.

Alawite Syrians, an ethnoreligious minority within the country who have historically aligned with the Assad regime, have been subjected to overwhelming violence since the rise of the new regime. Human Rights Watch found that, between March 7 and March 10 of this year, armed groups of citizens, along with government forces, attacked over thirty Alawi-majority areas within Syria, killing at least 1,400 citizens.

Many fear that these instances of state-led violence and instability may prompt more Syrian nationals to leave the country, including Alawites, Christians, and other minorities.

Ezgi Irgil, Associate Research Fellow in the Global Politics and Security Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, writes that any evaluation of the situation “must consider not only developments regarding the government but also the humanitarian situation for all Syrians themselves.”

Davidoff-Gore emphasizes the cost of this violence. “In a society where trust is so paramount, it’s these types of situations where it’s so hard to trust… I wouldn’t say that anyone’s fear is unwarranted.”

Experts predict that a mismanaged or rushed return of Syrian refugees to Syria may exacerbate the poverty and the limited resources in the nation. Refugees International writes that any widespread repatriation of displaced Syrians, “requires an overall improvement of the intertwined political, legal, and socioeconomic dimensions of return.”

Davidoff-Gore agrees. “It would be really overwhelming for people to come back all at once. At the same time, they do need people to restart the labor force. So it’s a balancing act, and that’s an area where policy makers really have the opportunity to help Syria navigate that, should countries choose to do that…. But from what I can tell, the [Syrian] government’s taking the right steps.”

Dr. Feliz Garip, Princeton University Professor of Sociology, instead offers a warning to Syrian refugees returning to the country. “We don’t know that Syria is safe to return to right now. There is existing hostility towards refugees who have left the country…The situation is a lot more complicated than just a change in government.”

Alaa Mousa, a former Syrian military doctor, was found guilty on June 16th, 2025, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a German court after being accused of torturing detainees in government hospitals during the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and 2012. The verdict, delivered by the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, represented the expansion of universal jurisdiction prosecutions in Europe since the conflict began more than a decade ago. 

The case follows Germany’s landmark Koblenz trial, which in 2022 delivered the world’s first conviction of a senior Assad regime official for crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction. That ruling established Germany as a leader in efforts to prosecute atrocities committed outside its borders. Since then, prosecutors have initiated several additional cases tied to Syria, including one related to the siege of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

Analysts say these efforts show how Germany’s courts are expanding the frontiers of international accountability at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) remains politically constrained.

“A crime is a crime, even if the criminal doesn’t live in the country where it was committed,” said Princeton anthropologist John Borneman, who has written extensively on law and justice in Germany and Lebanon. “The system of universal jurisdiction is actually an advance in legal process. When domestic courts fail, others should step in; that’s progress, not overreach.”

Since 2011, Syrian activists, survivors, and legal NGOs have documented tens of thousands of cases of torture and disappearance under the Assad regime. But with Syria never having joined the ICC and Russia’s UN Security Council veto blocking an international war crimes trial, survivors have increasingly turned to national courts in Europe as their only legal recourse.

Germany, which received over 700,000 Syrian refugees during the so-called “long summer of 2015,” has become the epicenter of these prosecutions. Since the Koblenz trial, there have been almost 50 trials on Syria in European courts. Many refugees were professionals, doctors, engineers, and lawyers who possessed the networks and education to organize cases and provide testimony. That social dynamic, Borneman noted, helped Germany become uniquely positioned to take up Syrian claims. “The Syrians who fled were often middle or upper-middle class,” he said. “They knew how to activate the justice system. They understood the importance of pursuing these prosecutions even from exile.”

Indeed, after moving to Germany in 2015 under a skilled-worker visa, Mousa was arrested in 2020 after being identified by witnesses who had recognized him among the Syrian diaspora. 

For Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American physician and humanitarian who leads the NGO MedGlobal, Mousa’s conviction resonates deeply on ethical grounds.

“The first rule in medicine is to do no harm,” Sahloul said. “To have a physician participate in torture and killing is against everything our profession stands for… it brings back memories of Hitler’s doctors. Justice was delayed, but this verdict matters.”

Sahloul argued that the Assad regime’s systematic targeting of hospitals and medical workers in Syria,  an early feature of the war, normalized attacks on healthcare in other conflicts, including Ukraine and Gaza. “Medical neutrality has been weaponized,” he said. “Holding perpetrators accountable is the only way to restore those norms. Otherwise, these conventions become ink on paper.”

While some critics question the fairness of trying lower-level perpetrators when senior regime figures remain untouchable, Sahloul said even symbolic cases have deterrent value. “You can’t try every officer or doctor,” he said. “But every conviction sends a message: there’s no impunity forever.”

Legal experts argue that Germany’s willingness to test the boundaries of jurisdiction reflects both its historical responsibility and its evolving identity. Since Nuremberg, Germany has embraced what Borneman calls a “ritual of accountability”; using law not only to punish, but to reaffirm moral order. “Trials like these,” he explained, “are secular rituals. They transform trauma into recognition. They tell victims: The world saw you.”

The Mousa case also illustrates how universal jurisdiction complements, and sometimes substitutes for, the ICC. Because the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the court, and Syria has no domestic provision for universal jurisdiction, Europe remains the main venue for such prosecutions. As Borneman put it, “Sometimes, you can’t rely on your own country’s justice system. Political realities make it impossible. Universal jurisdiction gives victims another path.”

Sahloul believes that even incremental victories matter. “Justice is not only about punishment,” he said. “It’s about prevention. Every time a court rules that torture or starvation are crimes, wherever they happen, it strengthens the idea that law applies to everyone.”

Despite cases like this, the path toward comprehensive justice for Syria remains uncertain. Sahloul cautioned that the new Syrian regime, transitioning, institutionally weak, and beset by reconstruction challenges, is unlikely to take control of prosecutions soon. He suggested that national courts must continue to act until domestic systems are robust enough to assume responsibility. 

Germany’s prosecutors have also opened a landmark case on the siege of Yarmouk, a Palestinian district of Damascus besieged from 2011 to 2015, where civilians were deliberately starved. The case charges former Syrian officials with using starvation as a weapon of war, a first under German law and potentially precedent-setting for future conflicts. As these cases continue to unfold, the real test lies ahead: can such trials catalyze broader accountability, inspire local justice in Syria, and hold future crimes to account?

Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2007 to 2013, was “not very happy” to hear that some of the West’s most powerful countries wanted to recognize a Palestinian state.

“Nothing has been settled by ‘we recognize you,’” said Fayyad. “Somewhere, someone needs to do something to make it happen. And that someone, somewhere is Israel.”

In late September, France, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom recognized a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly. The moves were meant to keep the possibility of a two-state solution alive and quickly drew backlash from Israeli officials.

“Your disgraceful decision will encourage terrorism against Jews and against innocent people everywhere. It will be a mark of shame on all of you,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech at the UN.

The timing of the recognitions signals a desire for Western nations to put increasing pressure on Israel and on Netanyahu’s government over the war in Gaza. But as a largely symbolic move, recognition of a Palestinian state is unlikely to produce much without a real peace process, said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer.

“I think absent a process of negotiation, of involvement of the two sides in some interactions, the politics of this are not going to work for a long time,” Kurtzer said. 

With the recognitions by France and the United Kingdom, the United States is the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that opposes Palestinian statehood. The current Palestinian state, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is currently a non-voting observer state (status on par with the Vatican). Admitting Palestine as a full member of the United Nations requires the assent of the Security Council, where the United States has veto power.

But American recognition of a Palestinian state is unlikely any time soon. Under the Biden administration in 2024, the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution to admit a Palestinian state. At the most recent U.N. General Assembly in September, President Trump called recognition a “reward” for Hamas. Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, couldn’t even be in New York to deliver his speech in-person after the Trump administration revoked his visa.

“Will it [recognition] come at some point? I hope to be able to live to 120, maybe in that period,” Kurtzer said with a chuckle. “But I’m not sure that’s the case.”

Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza outlined a shaky pathway towards potentially recognizing a Palestinian state, when “Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out.” But Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly shot down the possibility in a Sunday interview on MSNBC.

“In order for that aspiration to even be credible, it has to be realistic. We can’t have a Palestinian state that’s governed by Hamas or by some terrorist organization whose stated purpose for existence is the destruction of the Jewish state,” he said.

As a technocrat in Palestinian government from 2002 to 2013, Fayyad’s view was that statehood would be achieved by building the state itself, with security forces, public infrastructure, and a strong economy — not simply by declaration. He criticized recognition as encouraging complacency among Palestinian leaders, including Abbas, who called for additional countries to recognize a Palestinian state in his address at the U.N.

“Unless we assume full agency, nothing’s going to happen,” he said. “The mindset is, ‘it is going to happen for us.’”

Instead, Fayyad proposed having the U.N. Security Council recognize the right of the Palestinian people to a state — as opposed to just recognizing the state itself — as a way to open up negotiations. 

“Our right does not mean I am not prepared to negotiate borders. I am prepared, but I need to know that I have [the] right to this whole thing,” he said. 

Kurtzer acknowledged that such an approach could be more palatable once the Trump administration has figured out the war in Gaza.

“A creative idea could be, all right, you’re not going to recognize the state of Palestine, but start with recognizing Palestinian self-determination. And then after you’ve recognized Palestinian self-determination, you can include including the right to create their own state,” he said. That could help incrementally build a peace process for now, he said.

Public opinion in Israel, however, is not optimistic about a peace or a two-state solution. Two years after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, only one in five Israelis think permanent peace can be achieved, according to a Gallup poll. Nearly two-thirds of Israelis said they opposed a two-state solution.

“I’m a realist. There is no prime minister in Israel, not Netanyahu, anyone, within the next, maybe, 20–30 years, who is going to be able to tell his colleagues, ‘let’s do that,’” Fayyad said. “But why not really try to get this through the Security Council?”

The film Nuremberg depicts the establishment and process of the Nuremberg trials following the Allied victory during World War II. It was fascinating to see how these legal officials created a system of international accountability for mass atrocities, or “crimes against humanity,” essentially from scratch, grounding the entire trial in a shared sense of global justice and responsibility. It was also interesting to see the ways in which the four powers represented in the judgement for the trial – the U.S., U.K., France, and Russia – interacted with each other and external players. As Secretary Elsie Douglas says at one point to chill political tensions within a Christmas party, “Frankly, I can’t keep track of all the politics in this room!”

One of the most poignant parts of the film was the use of visual evidence during the trial. Captured by Allied soldiers liberating Nazi concentration camps, the footage depicts the horrific realities of those subjected to Nazi camps: emaciated bodies, human remains in ovens, and mass graves piled high with corpses. Yet, it wasn’t the footage itself that struck me most, but rather the difference between my reaction to it as opposed to those in the courtroom. Viewers heard gasps, cries, and people running out of the room as they saw these images. However, I, as a viewer in 2025, was not moved to the same emotional depths as those watching live. Admittedly, I had seen that footage before, as well as heard many stories of the indescribable and horrific violence and torture that occurred within the camps. But these reactions made me start to think about the way we interact with violent or graphic footage presently. In today’s digital world, we are exposed to graphic and horrifying footage in an almost constant stream. Videos of murder and mass terrorist attacks from around the world find their way to the internet and into the pockets of billions of people globally. I wonder if it is more difficult to garner international support for mass atrocity accountability mechanisms because we are all so desensitized to the sight of violence on such a massive scale?

These questions felt even more topical in light of last week’s readings and short films on Open Source Investigations. With the rising capability and influence of artificial intelligence, video footage is easily altered or faked – even further contributing to our general desensitization to wartime or other violent footage. After all, why trust any video or photograph that could be faked? Therefore, in addition to the apathy the internet garners towards this footage, mistrust also lessens its power. It’s an extremely chilling thought, especially in a world where international laws are increasingly violated with seemingly very few consequences, and where public fatigue often risks sliding into indifference.

Through delays, expirations, and “voluntary” departures, the United States is redefining the limits of humanitarian protection for Ukrainians, leaving thousands in limbo between legality and expulsion.

In 2022, the United States opened a dedicated humanitarian parole pathway—Uniting for Ukraine (U4U)—allowing Ukrainians to enter quickly if a vetted U.S. sponsor agreed to support them. The program paired expedited entry with access to work permits and, in many states, driver’s licenses and social services, signalling an intended, if provisional, welcome. By September 2024, more than 221,000 Ukrainians had arrived through the program, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security. 

Three years on, the policy environment looks very different. The Trump administration, after taking office in January 2025, suspended new U4U admissions and paused renewals for many existing parolees, introducing bureaucratic barriers that have made basic life functions—employment, transportation, and access to services—progressively harder.

Even where formal status is not yet revoked, the loss or delay of work and driver’s license renewals creates an incentive to leave. The result is a covert attempt to push refugees, who are technically allowed to stay but cannot survive without income or mobility, to self-deport.

“By international law, once someone reaches your border, you have to offer them protection until you adjudicate their case,” explained sociologist Filiz Garip, who studies migration and deterrence. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine has settled into a grinding stalemate. After early advances and later counteroffensives, Ukrainian forces now face mounting fatigue, while Russia consolidates its hold over occupied regions. Displaced Ukrainians abroad are therefore caught between a homeland they cannot safely return to and a host country whose legal hospitality is evaporating.

Garip sees in this case a mirror of global patterns. “What’s happening to Ukrainians all around the world is reflecting a more general trend on asylum protections,” she said. “Countries are trying to prevent migrants from reaching their borders and from being even considered for asylum.” She pointed to how governments increasingly outsource or bureaucratize deterrence, constructing “workarounds to deny people’s rights” through visa rules and administrative bottlenecks rather than overt deportations.

In the summer of 2025, that tension peaked. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) email, later deemed a clerical mistake, erroneously instructed some U4U parolees to depart within seven days. Officials walked it back, confirming that U4U was not terminated at this time, but the episode triggered panic across communities already facing work authorization lapses. 

The government’s concurrent rollout of “Project Homecoming,” which offers a $1,000 stipend and travel assistance to those who voluntarily confirm departure through the CBP Home app, only deepened suspicion that the policy goal was quiet repatriation rather than protection. Officials insist participation is voluntary, but for those unable to work or access housing, it can feel less like an offer than an ultimatum.

“A lot of these people are under temporary protection status,” Garip noted. “By definition, those statuses can be revoked. As soon as that program expires, you lose those rights.” That fragility, she added, means permission to remain depends entirely on conditions set—and removed—by administrative decree.

What makes Ukrainians a particularly revealing case, Garip continued, is how cultural proximity shaped their initial welcome. “In the Ukrainian case, cultural proximity played a huge role—you can actually tell this from the way politicians talked about it,” she said. But when enforcement logic takes over, sympathy becomes a short-term asset, not a policy foundation.

The shift is also perceptual. According to Oksana Nesterenko, a Ukrainian legal scholar and visiting research fellow at Princeton, Ukrainian media have tracked these changes in distinct phases. “The first stories appeared when the Uniting for Ukraine program was paused—that created a burst of news and a lot of uncertainty about what it meant for people already in the U.S.,” she explained. “Later, attention shifted to delays with renewing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and, more recently, to the growing concern over the loss of work authorization.” 

Nesterenko noted that coverage differed by geography. “Outlets in Ukraine mostly reported the facts in a neutral way, sometimes noting that people might return home or move to Europe,” she explained. “Meanwhile, Ukrainian media in the U.S. wrote about the issue with more empathy, focusing on how the loss of work authorisation affected people’s daily lives and stability.”

When asked whether Ukrainians in the media compared the U.S. system to the EU’s Temporary Protection framework, Nesterenko said such parallels rarely appear explicitly. “In Ukrainian media, especially those based in Ukraine, the focus has been more on how European countries—particularly Poland and Germany—are now encouraging Ukrainians to return home voluntarily,” she said. “So the discussion is less about comparing U.S. and EU policies, and more about Ukraine’s own challenge of creating conditions for people’s return.”

Still, many Ukrainians abroad understand the precariousness of their situation. Those who filed TPS renewals on time generally keep their work authorisation while cases are processed, but others—especially those outside U4U or TPS—face severe uncertainty. “For them, it’s not only about losing the right to work but about their overall legal status in the U.S.” Nesterenko said. “Many who lose their work authorization tend to leave and move to Europe, because they don’t want to face legal problems and need to be able to work to pay for housing, access healthcare, and send their children to school.”

As such departures multiply, the line between voluntary and coerced becomes blurred. The system no longer orders people to leave, instead eroding the conditions that make staying possible. For those without savings, Nesterenko said, “they are the first to leave, while others with some financial cushion try to adjust their status—though the options for doing so are quite limited.” The policy’s quiet efficiency lies in transforming endurance into choice, until leaving feels like the only rational act left.

This strategy marks a new frontier in migration governance, fine-tuning attrition instead of enforcing mass expulsion. It preserves the façade of legality—no roundups, no deportation flights—but achieves similar outcomes through slow suffocation. By making lawful life impossible, the government avoids the optics of deportation while shrinking protected populations.

Ultimately, the moral and legal challenge lies in accountability. If a state engineers departure without issuing removals, who bears responsibility for the outcome? The U.S. approach toward Ukrainians has lost its humanitarian inspiration, revealing an administrative future of asylum governed less by borders than by expiration dates.