Paper slams Iran for harassing Afghan refugees

Excerpts from by Afghan independent secular daily newspaper Hasht-e Sobh on 17 August

The inhumane and anti-religious and anti-humanitarian instructions of Iran's Sheraz Province governor have made the point clear that Afghans have now been victimized and insulted by the Islamic Republic of Iran more than ever. Iranians operate based on the logic that due to international laws and principles of good neighbourly coexistence they cannot lift Afghans like bags of sand and throw them to the other side of the border, therefore, they have chosen to victimize them and insult them to force them to return to Afghanistan. However, more than 20 years of insults and victimization have hardened Afghan refugees in that country.

Hasht-e Sobh newspaper has called this action of the Iranians as Islamic Semitism. I think this is an extremely beautiful yet shocking description. It is true that Afghans are not leaving Iran, but it is also true that they are thrown out as dirty beings from their own houses and they are introduced to the people of the area as thieves, robbers and dirty beings.

Once I read views of an Iranian national who had responded to a complaint by an Afghan refugee. The Iranian had written a nice joke: We Iranians are insulted and oppressed in our own country so much that I do not know how we can ask our government to respect your rights.

[Passage omitted: Iranians' rights have been habitually flouted; the author says more than 5,000 men and women were killed in Iran in 1367 for their affiliation with different groups]

It is interesting that in its conflict with the West over its nuclear program, Iran passes itself as an oppressed victim and describes the West as a tyrant. Its television and radio channels keep talking about Palestine and the south of Lebanon. Iran claims to be an example government for Shiites in the Middle East. However, it is clear that, while calling the West a tyrant, it insults and oppresses the largest Muslim refugee population on its soil. How can a government that cries over the death of a woman and a child in Lebanon and Gaza tolerate the torture of other Muslims in its camps?

[Passage omitted: Afghan refugees are brutally treated at some refugee camps in Afghanistan]

Mr [Mahmud] Ahmadinezhad] thinks that the West is arrogant and the USA is a big Satan because they are cruel to Muslim polities. But how should we assess the cruelty of Muslim states on fellow Muslim countries?. A minor comparison of the situation of Muslims in Europe with that of Muslims in Iran would add to the shame of those who claim to be fighting the tyrants.

Afghan nationals living in Europe and Canada and other [Western] countries are easily supported by the governments of those countries. They have access to free medical service, free health insurance, monthly financial assistance, free maternity support, financial support to newly born babies, free primary and secondary education, financial assistance for higher education and the ability to assume senior governmental and non-governmental positions. These are privileges that an Afghan refugee can avail in Western hegemonic countries without feeling inferior. They have the right to vote, the right to become a citizen without being discriminated against, the right to object and not vote for political parties with anti-immigration policies.

What about rights in the brotherly and Muslim state of Iran? Can a refugee enjoy any of the above rights in the country that shouts against tyranny and claims to be a strong Muslim state? Even if a refugee does not ask for anything and bear all the costs that he incurs, without complaining about it, the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will still not leave him alone and in peace. It will expel him by insulting him a thousand times.

I think that from a legal and structural point of view the Iranian government is primitive, racist, uncommitted to human rights in this modern world and is prepared to exercise all forms of violence and insult to use its authority. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult for Iranian government officials to portray themselves as Muslim champions and the Westerners as symbols of tyranny, arrogance and imperiousness because they [the Iranian government] are not committed to the very values and principles that they condemn the West for not upholding.

Source: Hasht-e Sobh, Kabul, in Dari 17 Aug 08