Afghans living in Isfahan, Iran were banned from the city’s mountainous park called Sofheh on April 1 or the 13th day of Norouz (Iranian New Year) – a day people are meant to spend outdoors – in order ‘to ensure citizens’ security and welfare’, according to the Travel Committee’s police department.

This is just the latest attack on the most vulnerable segment of Iranian society. The reported two million Afghans in Iran face huge amounts of abuse and are often scapegoated and blamed for all societal ills (sound familiar?). They end up doing the most menials tasks with little pay. They also often face beatings and mistreatment as well as violent deportations – there are ample horror stories of parents being deported whilst their children were at home and later found starved to death. Discrimination is rife. Afghan children are prohibited from attending schools. Marriages between Afghans and Iranians are also not recognised. Children born in Iran of Afghan fathers and Iranian mothers are denied birth certificates and Iranian nationality. Here’s a video of Afghans being forced by soldiers to hit themselves and say ‘We will not come to Iran again’.

In response to the regime’s latest assault on Afghans, Iranians have been quick to condemn its racism by posting photos and videos saying ‘I am also an Afghan’.

Yes indeed; we are all of us Afghans…

* Signs in Persian say ‘I am also Afghan’ and ‘No to Racism’.

(News link via Mina Ahadi)

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5 Comments

  1. Adhiminijad also says there are no homosexuals in Iran too! If a western politician of any ideology had ever said anything like that it would be so condemned but the leftist media said very little about it actually!
    The position of the Sharia Ideology toward homosexuality is odd. One of their Prophet’s main, more educated believers wrote a poem about riding boys, believe it or not that is revered as poetry while they condemn western poetry and nudity as pornography?
    As a mainstream rightist who supports Gert Wilders, I personally have no moral hang-ups about homosexuality as consensual, sexual acts are the individuals’ personal business! In the Netherlands, Gert Wilders is getting support from gay men who have woken up to what the followers of the caravan bandit and thief, Mohammad think of them! I have no tolerance for pedophilia and the acts toward boys encouraged in Islamic, Sharia society are disgusting! The UN Act for the rights of Children says nothing about these practices which are now cultural!
    Adhiminijad is blind! He sees nothing neither Afghan, illegal aliens nor homosexuals and probably outside the Koran’s Sharia knows nothing too! His masogynist society lends itself toward women hating men because of how they are treated! It has been my personal experience that lesbians often are women who hate men for how they were abused as children!
    What is the government of Afghanistan led by Karzai, who owes the USA so much for keeping him in power when he lost last time to an Islamic Sharia supporter doing to condemn these actions by Adhiminjad’s Iran? Not much!
    Karzai is about to commit political suicide by trying to ban the full veil on Mondays which when US troops go, he better be ready to leave too! We Americans can’t maintain an occupation under humanitarian guidelines forever!
    Sad reality is we really can’t do much with the Islamic, Sharia countries! Maybe had we split Afghanistan in two with the Russians, their Sharia supporters would have been more grateful and less hateful toward the West? The Russians had a more workable albeit inhumane solution to the Sharia issue, you kill off the people supporting it and replace them with Russians!
    Historically speaking, the Sharia Islamic ideology has done nothing for the peoples it took over and brainwashed! There was an Ilkhanate Mongul Leader based in Persia named Hulagu under Mongke Khan. He tried to get an alliance going of all the anti-Islamic countries as he feared Islam being a Buddhist! He defended the Nestorians of Persia/Afghanistan who were dominant in the Sassinid Empire of the Zoarastrians. A Nestorian messenger went and visited the Holy See in the middle of the Crusades and received no support from the Catholics because his King was a Buddhist which says it all!

  2. Afghans in parks have always been a very serious problem.

    Is there anyone the Iranian religious government does not hate?

  3. Iranians are quick to dismiss racism as a foreign phenomenon not existing in Iran. But as seen here there is ample evidence that it is not rare, even though, luckily, push back against it is not rare either.

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