Continuing To Advocate for the Afghan People and the Rule of Law

On the 21st anniversary of the Guantánamo detention facility last month, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows (PT) helped gather endorsements and joined 158 other organizations urging President Biden to prioritize closing Guantánamo and ending indefinite detention. Early this month there were two exciting developments concerning Guantánamo. On February 2, Majid Khan, whose case PT had supported with an amicus brief, was resettled to Belize, where his family will join him. That same day, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism announced that she will be visiting the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as part of a trip to the U.S. beginning February 6. In a press statement PT praised the Special Rapporteur’s office and the Biden Administration for working together to make her visit possible, and expressed hope her work can inform a path forward to judicial finality for family members, the accused, and all those affected by 9/11 and its aftermath.

February 2023 marks the one year anniversary of President Biden’s Executive Order on the Afghan Central Bank Funds. In collaboration with other organizations in the Unfreeze Afghanistan coalition we have sent a letter to Afghan Fund Board Members requesting a meeting with them and urging they take “swift action to recapitalize Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) and bring stability to the Afghan economy to halt deepening poverty and related hunger that is provoking many marginalized Afghans to resort to alarming and harmful coping mechanisms including the exchange of young girls in marriage.” We continue to monitor the 9/11 family lawsuit that is holding up the return of another $3.5 Billion of the Afghan people’s money to Afghans and note that many experts conclude that the plaintiff’s arguments are not convincing. We also recently cosigned a letter to the United Nations and Organization of Islamic States on women’s human rights in Afghanistan.