Washington — When the Taliban overran the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif in August 2021, Aminullah Ranjbar, a police officer, says he had “no option” but to flee with his family to Iran.
The Ranjbars have been living in Tehran as undocumented refugees for the past three years, fearing deportation to Afghanistan, where Aminullah’s life is in danger.
“We know that many [former Afghan security officials] were killed by the ruling group in Afghanistan,” Ranjbar said.
Thousands of former Afghan security forces fled to Iran after the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 for fear of reprisals.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan says it documented “at least 60 instances of arbitrary arrest and detention, at least 10 instances of torture and ill-treatment, verbal threats and at least five killings of former government officials and former ANDSF members” between April 1 and June 30, 2024.
The U.N. has also recorded at least 800 human rights violations, including 218 extrajudicial killings, against government officials and security forces from the Taliban’s takeover in 2021 to June 2023.
UNHCR said an estimated 1 million Afghans fled to Iran after the Taliban took power in 2021.
According to the UNHCR, 4.5 million Afghan refugees are in Iran, of whom only 750,000 are registered as refugees.
Many Afghan refugees living in Iran share Ranjbar’s concerns.
“I just go to work and come back to the hostel. I am afraid of going anywhere else,” said Shah Mahmood, a daily laborer who has been living in Iran for the past five years.
Mahmood told VOA that the Iranian government’s behavior toward Afghan refugees changed after the fall of Afghanistan in 2021, which forced many more Afghans to flee to Iran.
“Harassment, detention and deportation of Afghan refugees increased in the past three years,” he said. “It is becoming difficult for Afghans to live in Iran, but we are desperate, and there is nothing if we return to Afghanistan.”
In a statement on Monday, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norway-based human rights nongovernmental organization reporting on human rights violations in Iran, reported an increase in “anti-Afghan racism within both governmental and social spheres in Iran.”
Videos of the mistreatment of Afghan refugees in Iran are circulating on social media. A viral video posted Tuesday shows Iranian policemen kneeling on a young Afghan refugee. VOA cannot verify the authenticity of the videos.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials said that undocumented foreigners should leave Iran by the end of this year.
In May, the Iranian government said it deported 1.3 million foreigners, primarily Afghan refugees, in one year.
Fearing deportation, Mahmood hopes the new Iranian government, headed by Masoud Pezeshkian, will adopt a more tolerant policy toward the refugees.
However, Abdul Ghafoor Liwal, former Afghan ambassador to Iran, told VOA that he does not think the Iranian policy toward Afghan refugees and Afghanistan will change.
“In general, it is the Iranian policy, in their own words, to expel undocumented Afghans from Iran. I don’t think that there would be any changes,” Liwal said, adding, “The region is not in the hands of the civilian governments in Iran.”
Iran-Taliban relations
Iran has cultivated close relations with the Taliban since the group seized power in 2021.
The country handed over the Afghan Embassy in Tehran to the Taliban in early 2023.
“Iran’s policy toward Afghanistan is security-focused,” said Liwa. “Iran does not want to open another front on its eastern border while it is involved in the Middle East,” he said.
Fatemeh Aman, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, agreed that Iran’s relations with the Taliban are driven by security concerns. “As recently as this year, there have been terrorist attacks in Iran. Terrorists could enter the border undercover,” she said.
In January, twin suicide bombings in the Iranian city of Kerman killed at least 95 people.
Iranian officials traced the attack to Islamic State-Khorasan Province based in Afghanistan.
Aman said that migrant flow from Afghanistan is another important issue that Iran’s regime is facing.
