Sadly for Afghanis, I doubt they could actually use their passport to travel to the countries that freely admit them. Many of those countries are very remote and impossible to travel to without stopping in another country first.
Lots of countries offer visa free transit though, right? You usually don't need to even go through customs when getting a connection international flight.
Even where you usually stay in transit area, the country may demand transit visa for certain passports (such as those on top of this quiz), which means the airline wouldn't allow you on the flight for starters.
I've only ever had to go through customs and therefore use my passport in transit when I was changing airports or I had an overnight layover somewhere.
You can follow the link at the top of the quiz, then select "Compare", and you can find out which countries work for North Koreans. (For example, Tuvalu!)
Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Iran, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Macao, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palau, Palestine, Qatar, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, St. Vincent, Suriname, Tanzania, East Timor, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda according to the source, but I know a lot of people will go to China visa free and South Korea of course does not require a visa.
Well, to be honest some of the people from the countries on the list don't bother using passports and just walk across national borders on their way to Germany, UK and Sweden.
True. However, covid has halted things and the EU has already been putting the brakes on migration both at home and abroad. Italy has been using their navy to prevent Africans from reaching the mainland and Greece has been stopping Syrians from crossing in through Turkey. Meanwhile Germany has even sent their military into Sub Saharan Africa to work with various leaders including some dictators who are known human rights violators by paying them and giving them newer technology to keep migrants out of Europe. Money talks.
Didn't think of Kosovo; the question of their passports is an interesting one. They're not a fully independent country in my mind; it must create a bit of a mess with passports and other certificates if they move or work abroad, etc.
As with anything, bow down to the US empire and go where you like. Dare to live in a country that stands up for itself and and they do everything they can to restrict you.
It's not the US empire it's the international system of countries that believe in cooperation, law, human rights, peaceful coexistence, and, often, democracy. If you want to be a belligerent rogue nation, so that the corrupt kleptocrats in power can better hold on to their power, almost always at the expense of their own people more than anyone else, you'll end up with a weaker passport. Though the "weakness" of passports has as much or more to do with economics than politics. But... having a poor economy is also often the result of a country being run by belligerent, corrupt kleptocracies. Trying to seal off your nation from dangerous ideas not controlled by the state is bad for the economy. And then when your people end up poor and destitute other countries start worrying about your citizens becoming economic migrants. I don't personally share those concerns, but, that's the reality of it.
Shielding off your own mind from dangerous facts and information the same way North Korea shields its people from the same is really the only way you could come to conclusions other than what I stated above.
Not having a good passport doesn't really have anything to do with your human rights record. If it did, then the UAE wouldn't have one of the best passports in the world. It mostly has to do with having a strong economy, low levels of violence, and to a lesser extent having close allies.
I didn't use the term human rights, and certainly didn't imply that that was the one and only determining factor, but if you look at the countries on the above list there does appear to be a correlation. It has more to do with, like I said, countries being run by corrupt kleptocrats or rogue warlords who prioritize holding on to power more than cooperating with other nations. This *is* negatively correlated with many things, including the strength of a nation's economy, the strength of its democratic institutions, stability of government, *and* human rights... but none of those correlated things are themselves the whole ball of wax. *and*, it's possible to pick out nations, like the UAE, that are not democratic and that don't have the best human rights record, but at the same time *are* interested in international cooperation and maintaining positive diplomatic and trade relations with other countries. This shores up my point more than it detracts from it.
Bashar al-Assad: heroically dropping barrel bombs on political opponents, peaceful protestors, and/or innocent civilians (and mostly the latter) since '11... because that's how you really stick it to Uncle Sam! What an inspiration!
Certainly not entirely, but, yes, it has more to do with this than "daring to stand up for yourself" - which is a nonsensical non-factor. The possibility that people from these countries overstay their visas while visiting other countries is also correlated strongly with what I said about nations being run by belligerent autocrats and kleptocrats, as those countries tend to have bad economies, prioritizing enriching their leaders over the common man, and little respect for the lives and rights of their citizens, prioritizing the ruling class holding on to power over democracy or freedom, leading to many people wanting to flee to other places.
Can anyone offer explanation for Sri Lanka? I guess there's been prolonged civil war; as recently as 2009(?). I also missed Nepal. I thought it was mainly neutral- I guess they had a civil war 1996-2006 as well.
Also surprised to not find CAR on the list. I guess radical Muslims haven't made it in high enough numbers there yet? Aso Mali/Mauritania.
I think that the South Asian countries that show up here, though they are not as poor and/or not as belligerent as many of the other countries that show up above, suffer by virtue of their geography. Other regions of the world have more economic and political cooperation between larger numbers of countries. South Asia has relatively fewer countries, is dominated mostly by India, and India doesn't get along particularly well with most of its neighbors, leaving them more isolated than many poorer and/or less stable countries in Africa, the Middle East, SE Asia or Latin America.
Also, I allude to this on the opposite quiz, but immigration. South Asians immigrants go everywhere, essentially to any country that's even slightly richer than them. This is not a concern for poorer and less populous countries like, say, Chad or Mali. A lot of richer countries probably the best way to limit illegal immigration from these countries is not allowing them in in the first place--hence, strict visa requirements. The only reason India is not on here I suspect is because it's a powerful enough country that it can negotiate for visa-free travel, something the other countries can't do.
JWatson: just an aside, but I don't think I've said this before, but I enjoy having your perspective here. Your comments are usually well thought-out and informative and since you come from India (right? or am I mistaken?) they also contain a perspective underrepresented amongst all the other comments from Americans, Europeans, and various other Anglophone countries.
actually... just looked at your profile and it says your from Pennsylvania, visited Bangladesh, but never been to India... pardon my ignorance. Should have checked first. Are you a Bengali immigrant in the US? Or were your parents from India and you've never gone back for a visit? Or am I just confused?
It'll be interesting to watch how travel restrictions for Russian citizens change (if at all). The EU, as of November 2022, designated Russia a "state sponsor of terrorism", but that's largely symbolic. Over the summer, the EU balked at an outright visa ban for Russian tourists. Some European countries, though, are going forward with their own independent restrictions, but it's been suggested Russians could "visa shop" essentially nullifying those efforts.
Also surprised to not find CAR on the list. I guess radical Muslims haven't made it in high enough numbers there yet? Aso Mali/Mauritania.