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Turkey should stop shooting at Syrian civilians fleeing fighting and immediately allow them to cross the Turkish border to seek protection, Human Rights Watch said today. Renewed fighting between the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and armed opposition groups in Northern Aleppo has displaced at least 30,000 people in the past 48 hours, with Turkish border guards shooting at some of them as they approach Turkey's new border wall.
Turkey's border remains firmly shut, a year after the authorities started rejecting all but the most seriously injured Syrians. Turkey has previously indicated it wants to create a "safe zone" in Syria to which Syrians could ostensibly flee and Turkey could return Syrian refugees. In its March 8, 2016 deal with Turkey, the European Union said it would work with Turkey to "allow for the local population and refugees to live in areas which will be more safe."
"As civilians flee ISIS fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion," said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The whole world is talking about fighting ISIS, and yet those most at risk of becoming victims of its horrific abuses are trapped on the wrong side of a concrete wall."
According to international aid workers in Turkey and heads of six of the 10 displaced persons camps east of Azaz near the Turkish border, ISIS advances on April 13 and 14 have forced out at least half the camps' 60,000 residents. They have fled to other camps, to the Bab al-Salameh camp on the Turkish border and to the nearby town of Azaz. Three of the camps - Ikdah, Harameen and al-Sham - are now completely empty of the 24,000 people previously sheltering there.
On April 14, Human Rights Watch spoke with the representatives of six of the 10 camps and seven displaced Syrians who had been living in camps that had been taken over by ISIS or that were close to the fast-changing ISIS front line. All of the residents said they wanted to flee to Turkey but that the closed border meant they had nowhere to escape to. Some said they had stayed in the camps under ISIS-threat because they were afraid they wouldn't be able to find shelter elsewhere, knowing other camps along the Turkish border were completely full. Others said they had returned to their nearby home villages even though they were still unsafe.
The head of Ikdah camp, on the Turkish border, said that ISIS had taken over the camp, which sheltered just under 10,000 people, early on April 14, fired shots in the air, and told residents to leave.
A camp resident who escaped described what happened:
"At dawn we heard gunshots near the camp. A short while later ISIS arrived and used a loudspeaker to tell us we all had to leave. They said we had nothing to fear and that we should all go east, into ISIS territory. We left the camp but headed north through olive groves toward the Turkish border. We were about 2,000 people. As we approached the border wall we saw Turkish soldiers on a hill behind the wall and they just started shooting at us. They shot at our feet and everyone just turned round and ran in all directions. I took my family and we walked to another [displaced persons] camp nearby, called al-Rayan. We're afraid now because ISIS is close to this camp too. But where can we go."
The head of al-Sham camp, close to the town of Kafr Bureysha two kilometers south of the Turkish border, said during an interview that the sound of machine gun fire in the background was coming from advancing ISIS pickup trucks from the new front line town of Kafr Shush, about a kilometer away. He said that gunfire had injured a 30-year-old man in the camp earlier in the day and that people in the camp who couldn't escape quickly enough were digging holes to protect themselves.
On April 14, displaced persons' representatives on the Syrian side of Turkey's closed Bab al-Salameh border crossing told Human Rights Watch that about 5,000 displaced people from camps to the east taken by ISIS or under ISIS threat the previous night and earlier that morning had arrived in the Bab al-Salameh camp and the nearby town of Azaz.
"Turkey's closed border is forcing Syrian men, women, and children to dig ditches and hide to escape the horrors of war," Simpson said. "Turkey's attempt at creating a so-called safe zone is a terrible joke for civilians cowering underground and desperate to escape Syria."
As of early April, Turkey had completed a third of a 911 kilometer rocket-resistant concrete wall along its border with Syria. Satellite imagery dated April 8 reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed that the wall had sealed off significant parts of the border north of Aleppo.
Starting in late March, Syrian armed opposition groups opened an offensive from their enclave in Azaz to retake key areas from ISIS along the Turkish border. After armed groups took the town of al-Rai, ISIS began a counteroffensive on April 9, retaking a number of areas. Clashes in the towns near the Turkish border continue as armed rebel groups and ISIS try to gain control over towns there.
According to reliable United Nations sources in Turkey, as of April 14, ISIS had opened an attack against Azaz, which is near the Turkish border, and was in control of several villages to the east, including Hiwar Kalas, Kafr Shush, Zayzafun-Ekdeh, and Baraghideh.
As of April 12, various agencies had identified 75,000 displaced Syrians living in about 10 informal camps and a number of locations in Azaz, to the east of the town along the Turkish border and in Bab al-Salameh. They also estimated at least an additional 25,000 displaced people were in various locations to the east of Azaz. Many of them have fled multiple rounds of fighting and offensives in Northern Syria.
Since early 2015, Turkey has all but closed its borders to Syrians fleeing the conflict. On April 12 and 13, 2016, Human Rights Watch interviewed eight people who described how Turkish border guards at the Syrian border violently pushed them and dozens of others back to Turkey in February and March 2016. Two described how Turkish border guards beat fellow asylum seekers so badly they could not recognize their faces.
These recent accounts of Turkish border guard abuses are consistent with Human Rights Watch findings in late 2015 that Turkish border guards beat and summarily expelled dozens of Syrians who crossed to Turkey using smugglers.
Turkish authorities have allowed international aid groups based in Turkey to cross into Syria and join Syrian aid groups to distribute tents and other assistance to Syrians stuck at the border crossing and in nearby border areas.
Human Rights Watch said that allowing much-needed cross-border aid does not absolve Turkey of its obligation to respect the principle of non-refoulement. That principle, under customary international law and international human rights law, prohibits rejecting asylum seekers at borders when that would expose them to the threat of persecution and torture.
In July 2015, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said that "cleansing the region of all threatening elements and establishing a safe zone constitutes the basis of 1.7 million Syrian refugees' return." The same month, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister, said that, "When areas in northern Syria are cleared of the [ISIS] threat, the safe zones will be filled naturally.... People who have been displaced can be placed in those safe areas."
While Turkey's desire to limit the number of refugees may be understandable, the current situation in northern Syria makes clear that any "safe zone" would be safe in name only and would put the lives of displaced people in danger, Human Rights Watch said.
In mid-March, the EU concluded a controversial migration deal with Ankara to curb refugee and migration flows to Europe, offering EUR6 billion in aid to assist Syrians in Turkey, and reinvigorated EU membership negotiations and the prospect of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens. A key objective of the deal is to enable Greece, with EU support, to reject almost all asylum applicants arriving by boat from Turkey on the grounds that Turkey is a safe country. The EU's explicit pledge to work with Turkey to create in Syria "areas which will be more safe" where "the local population and refugees [will be able] to live" should be seen in the context of a broader plan to contain the flow of asylum seekers.
"The violence at the Turkey-Syria border is terrible proof of what's wrong with the EU-Turkey deal," Simpson said. "EU countries and Turkey should be working together to provide genuinely safe havens for Syrian refugees, not slamming doors shut in rapid succession."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
"Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process," said one progressive advocacy group.
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris broke with President Joe Biden on Wednesday by proposing a smaller capital gains tax increase for wealthy Americans, a decision that one progressive advocacy group decried as a "baffling capitulation to Wall Street billionaires" who have vocally complained about the vice president's embrace of higher taxes on the ultra-rich.
Harris said at a campaign event in New Hampshire on Wednesday that "if you earn a million dollars a year or more, the tax rate on your long-term capital gains will be 28% under my plan," broadly confirming earlier reporting by The Wall Street Journal.
"We know when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and it creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger," said Harris, who previously signaled support for Biden's tax agenda.
A 28% top tax rate on long-term capital gains—profits from the sale of an asset held for more than a year—would be significantly lower than the 39.6% rate that Biden proposed in his most recent budget.
The Patriotic Millionaires, a group of rich Americans that advocates for a more progressive tax system, said it was "appalled" by Harris' decision to pare back Biden's proposed capital gains tax increase.
"Vice President Harris is making a catastrophic mistake by capitulating to the petulant whining of the billionaire class," said Morris Pearl, the group's chair. "Harris seems to be making a policy choice based on the disproven, failed ideology of trickle-down economics, and giving petulant billionaires a gift in the process."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error."
Details of Harris' capital gains tax plan began to emerge days after ultra-rich investors and other major donors to the vice president's 2024 campaign took to the pages of The New York Times to express concerns about Harris' support for Biden's tax agenda, which also calls for taxing the unrealized capital gains of households worth over $100 million.
The Financial Timesdescribed Harris' break with Biden on long-term capital gains as "an olive branch to Wall Street"; The New York Times similarly characterized the move as a message to the business community that she is "friendlier than Biden."
But Pearl of the Patriotic Millionaires warned that the policy shift "demonstrates a concerning lack of commitment to reversing destabilizing economic inequality."
"Both on the economics and on the politics, this is a serious unforced error," said Pearl, the former managing director at the investment behemoth BlackRock. "You don't need my years of experience on Wall Street to grasp the obvious. Big investors invest to make serious money, not to save a few percentage points on their tax bill. No one has ever made a lucrative investment decision based on a preferential tax rate. The incentive to invest is making money, not lowering tax rates."
"This ill-advised, destructive policy is a giveaway to the ultra-rich," he added. "We hope Vice President Harris will reconsider her position."
Even with a smaller proposed capital gains tax increase, Harris' tax agenda stands in stark contrast to that of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for massive additional tax cuts for the rich and large corporations while attacking Harris' support for progressive—and widely popular—tax proposals.
While Trump has not yet outlined a capital gains proposal during the 2024 campaign, the former president said in the final year of his first term that he would propose cutting the top capital gains rate to 15% in a second term.
Steve Wamhoff of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted at the time that 99% of the benefits of such a cut "would go to the richest 1% of taxpayers."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday blasted Dr. Ralph de la Torre—the CEO of a bankrupt health services company "who has made hundreds of millions of dollars ripping off patients and healthcare providers"—for refusing to comply with a bipartisan subpoena compelling him to testify about his company's insolvency.
"Perhaps more than anyone else in America, Dr. de la Torre is the poster child for the type of outrageous corporate greed that is permeating through our for-profit healthcare system," said Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).
"Working with private equity vultures, he became obscenely wealthy by loading up hospitals across the country with billions in debt and selling the land underneath these hospitals to real estate executives who charge unsustainably high rent," the senator added. "As a result, Steward Health Care, and the more than 30 hospitals it owns in eight states, were forced to declare bankruptcy with some $9 billion in debt."
Steward is trying to sell all 31 of its hospitals in order to pay down its debt.
As Common Dreamsreported on July 25, the HELP committee, which includes 10 Republicans, voted 20-1 to investigate Steward Health Care's bankruptcy, and 16-4 to subpoena de la Torre.
"I am now working with members of the HELP committee to determine the best path forward," Sanders said on Wednesday. "But let me be clear: We will not accept this postponement. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America. This committee intends to move forward aggressively to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify to the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care."
"It is time for Dr. de la Torre to get off of his $40 million yacht and explain to the American people how much he has gained financially while bankrupting the hospitals he manages," Sanders added, referring to the 190-foot megayacht the CEO purchased as Steward hospitals failed to pay their bills.
Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—a HELP committee member—and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also slammed de la Torre on Wednesday, calling his failure to appear before the panel "outrageous."
"De la Torre used hospitals as his personal piggy bank and lived in luxury while gutting Steward hospitals," the senators said. "De la Torre is as cowardly as he is cruel. He owes the public and Congress answers for his appalling greed—and de la Torre must be held in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee."
De la Torre's attorney, Alexander Merton, lashed out against the Senate subpoena Wednesday in a letter
accusing HELP committee members of being "determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion."
The same day the HELP Committee voted to probe Steward and subpoena de la Torre, Markey and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, introduced the Health Over Wealth Act, which would increase the powers of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to block private equity deals in the healthcare industry.
Last month, Markey and Warren expressed concerns over the proposed $245 million sale of Steward Health Care's nationwide physician network to a private equity firm.
"Two Massachusetts hospitals are closing and communities are suffering because of private equity's looting of Steward," said Warren. "Selling Massachusetts doctors to another private equity firm could be a disaster. We can't make the same mistake again. Regulators must scrutinize this deal."
"We already know how devastating the Biden asylum shutdown is and it should be ended immediately rather than expanded," said one campaigner.
Two months after U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order barring migrants who cross the southern border without authorization from receiving asylum, senior administration officials are reportedly considering making the policy—which was meant to be temporary—much harder to lift.
Biden's June directive invoked Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act—previously used by the administration of former Republican President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, to deny migrants asylum—"when the southern border is overwhelmed."
The policy shuts down asylum requests when the average number of daily migrant encounters between ports of entry hits 2,500. Border entry points may allow migrants to seek asylum when the seven-day average dips below 1,500.
"The move to make the asylum restrictions semi-permanent would effectively rewrite U.S. asylum law."
The changes under consideration would reopen entry only after the seven-day average for migrant encounters remains under 1,500 for 28 days.
"The asylum ban itself is arbitrary and duplicative. It has no relation at all to a person's asylum claims, meaning even a person with an extraordinarily strong claim would be denied for crossing at a time when many others, potentially thousands of miles away, are doing the same," Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, an advocacy group, said Wednesday.
"There is no doubt that we need to rethink the current asylum system, which would include giving it an infusion of resources so that people don't have to wait five years for a decision," he continued. "But cutting it off to whole swathes of people for reasons unrelated to their claims isn't a fix."
"The move to make the asylum restrictions semi-permanent would effectively rewrite U.S. asylum law, which since it was created in 1980 has mandated that all people on U.S. soil be permitted to request humanitarian protections, regardless of how they got here," Reichlin-Melnick added.
U.S. officials say Biden's order has resulted in a dramatic decrease in asylum claims.
According toThe New York Times:
Since Mr. Biden's executive order went into effect, the number of arrests at the southern border has dropped precipitously. In June, more than 83,000 arrests were made, then in July the number went down further to just over 56,000 arrests. Arrests in August ticked up to 58,000, according to a homeland security official, but those figures still pale in comparison to the record figures in December when around 250,000 migrants crossed.
Migrant rights advocates condemned the new rules. Less than two weeks after Biden issued the order, a coalition of rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the administration, arguing the policy was illegal and endangered migrant lives.
"We already know how devastating the Biden asylum shutdown is and it should be ended immediately rather than expanded," Amy Fischer, Amnesty International USA's director of refugee and migrants rights, said Wednesday on social media. "High numbers of people being denied their human rights is not a sign of success, it's a disgrace."