Taliban Embassy Says No Action Taken By UN To Prevent Harassment Of Afghan Refugees In Pak

Shahir had returned from Iran and was on his way to Kabul when the Taliban forces detained him in the Shahjoy district of Zabul province.

In a statement, Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC) asked the Taliban to release the journalist, but the Taliban in Zabul said that they were not aware of the detention of any journalists on the highway.

Reza Shahir, who had been detained and beaten up twice by the Taliban in Kabul in 2022, had fled to Iran with his family for external relocation to a safe country.

He had returned to Afghanistan due to his visa issues in Iran.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, arrests and threats against the journalists have been continuously reported. According to Afghanistan Journalists Center, 94 cases of arrest and torture of journalists were registered by the center in 2022.

Mortaza Behboudi, an Afghan-French journalist, has been imprisoned by the Taliban for the past few months.

According to him, After Afghanistan, citizens of Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Pakistan, Kuwait, Azerbaijan, India, Tajikistan, and Saudi Arabia are in the rankings in this order.

Daryabari added that Iran is ranked 46th in the world ranking of health tourism.

He said that these people have mostly been referred to Iran in the fields of gynaecology, eye surgery, orthopaedics, cosmetic surgeries, cardiovascular diseases, general surgery, cancer, and other diagnoses.

Earlier, Iran’s Secretary of Health Tourism Council had said that before the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign patients from Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain spent nearly 1 billion dollars as part of medical tourism in Iran.

He had said that the average expense of medical tourists is between 8 to 13 thousand dollars, and they spend four times more than other tourists in Iran.

This is while earlier Taliban officials in Herat said that on average, 120 to 140 corpses are being transferred to Herat per month from Iran.

According to these Taliban officials, the reason for the death of Afghans in Iran is mostly illness, traffic accidents, falling from buildings, and death as part of illegal border crossing to Iran.

Foreign ministers of Armenia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia are participating in this meeting.

According to the Russian state media, CSTO member countries will probably discuss concerns regarding Afghanistan.

Earlier, Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, during the CSTO’s defence ministers meeting in Minsk, called Afghanistan one of the hotbeds of instability in the region.

He said that the main source of threat is illegal armed groups which have strengthened their positions in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

Recently, Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, also said that Washington intends to use “active illegal armed groups” in Afghanistan to push instability in the region.

CSTO member countries have repeatedly raised concerns over the advent of terrorism in Afghanistan. These countries believe that terrorist groups are actively present on the borders of Afghanistan.

The Taliban Supreme Court did not explain the type of "retribution" for the Afghan man, but an eyewitness told Afghanistan International that he was killed by firing seven bullets.

This eyewitness, a resident of the province, added that the Taliban called the residents of Mehtarlam city to Eidgah mosque in the morning, and "retribution" was carried out in the courtyard of the mosque.

Several Laghman residents said that the Taliban did not allow them to photograph the execution scene. Taliban members asked people to leave their phones at home.

The Taliban supreme court stressed that the man had received due process and his execution was approved by the Taliban leader.

Earlier, Abdul Malik Haqqani, the deputy chief justice in the Taliban’s Supreme Court, announced that since taking power in Afghanistan, the group had sentenced hundreds of people to “Qisas [retribution] and stoning”.

Haqqani said that the Taliban has ordered the execution of 175 people and the stoning of 37 people throughout Afghanistan since taking power in the country.

He emphasised that the courts of this group have ordered four people to be buried alive and Sharia laws have been implemented on 103 other people.

Human rights groups have repeatedly called on the Taliban to stop the public punishment of Afghan citizens and have stressed that those accused by the Taliban don’t have access to due procedures and justice.

On World Refugee Day (June 20), the rights watchdog called on the Pakistani government to urgently stop arbitrary arrests and harassment of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers.

Amnesty stressed that these individuals are already fearful of their lives as many are fleeing persecution by the Taliban following the group’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 and they are facing more problems in Pakistan.

“It is deeply concerning that the situation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is not receiving due international attention. Being unable to return home or stay permanently in Pakistan, they are caught in an impossible situation from which there is no escape. Their ambiguous legal status and arduous processes for asylum or third country relocation have made them even more vulnerable,” said Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for South Asia.

The report highlighted how there have been considerable delays in the registration process and many with expired visas as most do not hold Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, the identity document entitling Afghan refugees to remain regularly in Pakistan.

Through interviews with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, media monitoring and review of official documents, Amnesty emphasised that Afghan refugees have also raised serious concerns about harassment by Pakistani police and officials.

The rights organisation stated that the threats and harassment the Afghan refugees suffer from have been amplified amid delays of the third-country relocation processes and expired visas as it makes them legally vulnerable.

It reported police harassment of Afghan refugees and extortion of money from them from across Pakistan, including in Sindh, Karachi, Peshawar, Chaman, and Quetta, among others.

The report also added that Afghans without documents to prove their legal status are unable to secure formal employment and often end up working in low-wage jobs where they are vulnerable to exploitation.

Without a PoR card or visa, it is also difficult to get SIM cards or set up bank accounts, which prevents Afghans from receiving money from their relatives, the report stated.

Despite contacting human rights groups in Pakistan, recently detained Afghan refugees said they were provided no legal protections while in police custody. In addition, Afghans often struggle to access healthcare and education for their children, as some schools refuse to enroll them due to ambiguities surrounding their legal status. For women and girls, it is especially difficult to enroll in schools in Pakistan due to gender discrimination.

Amnesty International urged the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to expedite registration and reviews of applications from Afghans seeking refugee status in Pakistan.

It also called on third countries offering relocation to Afghans abroad to expedite the issuance of visas.

After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, waves of Afghan refugees traveled to Pakistan and Iran to travel from these two countries to one of the Western countries using resettlement programs and humanitarian visas.