Dozens of Afghans demonstrated on Tuesday April 12 in Kabul to denounce the fate reserved by Iran for Afghan refugees, after the broadcast on social networks of videos showing some of them beaten by individuals presented as Iranians.
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About 200 people gathered in a square in the center of the Afghan capital and held up signs calling on Iran to "
stop the mistreatment
" and demanding "
justice
".
Public demonstrations are prohibited by the Taliban, but this one was authorized, under the careful surveillance of the police.
“When their police see us, they tackle us to the ground and beat us.
»
Manzoor Ahmad Farooqi, a protester.
“
Iranian security forces and even ordinary people are treating us badly now
,” said one protester, Manzoor Ahmad Farooqi, who said he returned from Iran after visiting there four months ago.
“
When their police see us, they tackle us to the ground and beat us.
»
New wave since the return of the Taliban
Iran, which already hosted more than three million Afghan refugees, welcomed a new wave of arrivals after the Taliban took power in August.
To escape the economic crisis affecting their country, thousands of Afghans try every day to enter Iran to find work or to then try to reach Europe, hoping to obtain asylum there.
Footage released over the weekend shows men portrayed as Iranian border guards and Iranian citizens beating up Afghan refugees.
Their authenticity could not be independently verified.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Iranian Embassy in Kabul deemed them "
unfounded
".
Iran's 'vigorous' protest
These videos have aroused emotion in Afghanistan.
On Monday, dozens of Afghans chanted "
death to Iran
" outside the Iranian consulate in Herat (west), according to an AFP journalist.
They also burned an Iranian flag, smashed CCTV cameras in the building and threw stones at it.
According to a statement published Tuesday on the website of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Iranian embassy in Kabul was also targeted.
Iran indicated in this press release that it had summoned the Afghan charge d'affaires in Tehran "
to protest vigorously
" against these attacks, and had suspended the activities of its embassy and its consular sections in Afghanistan while obtaining "
assurances guaranteeing their safety
.
Like the entire international community, Iran, which shares a 900 km border with Afghanistan, has not recognized the Taliban government.
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But Shiite Iran seems to have adopted a less hostile attitude towards the Taliban, Sunni Islamists, than during their previous passage to power, between 1996 and 2001. The two countries had maintained very tense relations after the assassination. of 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist by the Taliban at the consulate in Mazar-i-Sharif (North) in 1998.
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