September 20-2013
The Islamic Republic announced some months ago that it would expel hundreds of thousands of Afghans after their visas expired September 6, but that deadline has now passed without any government statement about whether and how it might carry out the deportations.
The Afghan government has estimated that 300,000 Afghan visa holders would be required to leave Iran after September 6 if no extension were granted.
“Afghans in Iran are caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.” The Iranian government is rushing to push them back across the border at a time when security conditions in Afghanistan are increasingly uncertain and dangerous.”
Human Rights Watch said Iran should, at a minimum, consider the claims of those facing deportation who say they will be harmed upon their return.
On August 24, the Mehr news agency reported that all undocumented Afghans and those holding temporary visas under a government program to register undocumented foreigners should leave Iran before their visas expire September 6 or face imprisonment, fines and ultimately expulsion.
An Iranian government website confirmed this but also said Afghanistan’s ambassador to Tehran had asked Iran to extend the visas beyond September 6. Afghan government sources told Human Rights Watch this request has yet to receive a response.
Only around 800,000 of the 3 million Afghans estimated to live in Iran have legal status as refugees. Another 400,000 to 600,000 Afghans hold temporary visas, while the others—or more than half—are undocumented.
Afghans often take on the grubbiest jobs in Iran for very low wages. But they are widely disliked and politicians routinely charge that they take jobs away from Iranians—echoing a charge frequently heard in the United States about Latin American laborers taking away the jobs of American citizens.
From 2010 to June 2012, the Iranian government operated a Comprehensive Regularization Plan (CRP) that offered undocumented Afghans in Iran an opportunity to register officially and apply for temporary visas, passports and work permits with the possibility—but not the guarantee—that these would be extended.
The process required Afghan men without families to return to Afghanistan to apply for the passports and visas, while families could do so without leaving Iran. The Iranian authorities have also encouraged Afghans who have legal status as refugees to obtain Afghan passports and exchange refugee status for Iranian residence visas.
According to Mehr and other sources, the September 6 deadline applied to all Afghans whose visas would expire on or before that date, regardless of whether they had registered under the CRP or were former refugees who converted their status.
Any undocumented Afghan found to have remained in Iran beyond the September 6 deadline could face imprisonment and be required to pay a 300,000-rial fine ($9) for each day they overstay.
The Iranian government has taken various steps to encourage or force Afghans to leave Iran since the fall of the Taliban government 12 years ago. Although Iran has ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, Human Rights Watch says the authorities have failed to provide any system allowing Afghans facing deportation to register asylum claims or contest their deportation on grounds that they will face persecution if they are returned to Afghanistan. “This failure has become critical as security conditions in Afghanistan worsen ahead of the planned withdrawal of all international combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014,” Human Rights Watch said Monday.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said last month that at least 40 percent of more than 5.8 million Afghan refugees who have returned to Afghanistan since 2002 were unable to “reintegrate into their home communities, resulting in significant secondary displacement, mostly to urban areas.”
Up to 60 percent of returnees have experienced difficulties “in rebuilding their lives” in Afghanistan, UNHCR says, while both returning refugees and those displaced internally face problems due to insecurity in their home areas, loss of livelihoods, lack of access to health care and education, and difficulties in reclaiming land and property.
Based partly on the UNHCR concerns, the Pakistani government recently concluded that, “Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan should see their legal permission to stay in Pakistan extended until 31st December 2015.”
In addition to being denied any means to register asylum claims, Afghans face serious rights abuses during their deportation by Iranian security forces, Human Rights Watch said Monday. It said a report scheduled for release in November will document how Iranian forces physically abuse Afghan deportees, detain them in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, force them to pay for their own transportation and accommodation in deportation camps, or to undergo forced labor if they cannot pay, and separate families.
“Afghans make up the world’s largest refugee population and people are leaving the country in droves as security conditions there continue to deteriorate,” Stork said. “Countries around the world, including Iran, have a duty to hear and fairly consider the cases of Afghans who fear returning home.”
