tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/hazara-12898/articlesHazara – The Conversation2021-10-25T12:34:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1680592021-10-25T12:34:51Z2021-10-25T12:34:51ZHow ethnic and religious divides in Afghanistan are contributing to violence against minorities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427863/original/file-20211021-21-1b4z10z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C17%2C5910%2C3808&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A powerful explosion Oct. 8, 2021, in a mosque in northern Afghanistan left several dead</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Afghanistan/40ef79cf2989416a8c9b87eff61f6ccc/photo?Query=afghanistan%20mosque%20explosion%20oct&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Abdullah Sahil</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Close to a hundred Afghan Shiite Muslims were killed in attacks on mosques in October 2021. One such attack took place on Oct. 15, when a group of suicide bombers <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/10/15/1046287550/suicide-bombers-attack-mosque-afghanistan">detonated explosives at a mosque in Kandahar</a>. Just over a week before that, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/afghanistan-prayer-religion-2b9d9863da38661ba6fa186a72ac5352">at least 46 people were killed in another suicide bomber attack</a> in northern Afghanistan. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for both attacks.</p>
<p>Ethnicity and religion are key to understanding the politics and conflicts of today’s Afghanistan. <a href="http://sinno.com/publications---data.html">My research on Afghan affairs</a> can explain how they have created fault lines that have influenced Afghanistan’s politics since 1978.</p>
<h2>Afghanistan’s four largest ethnic groups</h2>
<p>The largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Afghanistan/Plant-and-animal-life#ref21424">estimated at around 45% of the population</a> and mostly concentrated in the south and east of the country, are the Sunni Muslim Pashtun.</p>
<p>The Pashtun population is split in half by the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Durand Line, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.11588/iaf.2013.44.1338">has a long history of challenging state authority and the legitimacy of official borders in both countries</a>. Until recently, when Pakistan <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-bd8165697772792b69d65c8509633cd9">built a fence on the border</a>, Pashtun tribesmen and fighters crossed the border as if it did not exist. </p>
<p>The Pashtun are often characterized as being fiercely independent and protective of their land, honor, traditions and faith. The first time Pashtun fighters defeated an invading superpower was when they destroyed a British army sent to colonize Afghanistan in what is known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Anglo-Afghan-Wars">the First Anglo-Afghan War, which lasted from
1838 to 1942</a>. </p>
<p>The Pashtun tribes’ and clans’ martial prowess makes them very influential in the politics of Afghanistan. Except for two short-lived exceptions, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG150239">in 1929</a> and <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801475788/organizations-at-war-in-afghanistan-and-beyond/#bookTabs=1">between 1992 and 1994</a>, only Pashtun leaders have ruled Afghanistan since 1750. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map showing the distribution of ethnic groups in Afghanistan" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428066/original/file-20211022-9357-rozzwa.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pashtuns constitute Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g7631e.ct001105/?r=-0.797,-0.02,2.594,1.066,0">Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second-largest ethnic group in Afghanistan are the Tajiks, <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/129100/schetter.pdf">a term that refers to ethnic Tajiks as well as to other Sunni Muslim Persian speakers</a>. The Tajiks, who constitute some 30% of the Afghan population and are mostly concentrated in the northeast and west, have generally been accepted by Pashtuns as part of the fabric of life in Afghanistan, perhaps because of their common adherence to Sunni Islam. </p>
<p>The third-largest Sunni Muslim group are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02634938408400451">Uzbeks and the closely related Turkmen in the north of the country</a>, who form around 10% of the population.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-hazara-of-afghanistan-an-expert-on-islam-explains-166776">The Hazara</a> – around 15% of the Afghan population – traditionally lived in the rough mountainous terrain in the center of Afghanistan, an area in which they historically sought shelter from Pashtun tribesmen who disapproved of their adherence to the Shiite sect of Islam. The Hazara have historically been some of the poorest and most marginalized people in Afghanistan.</p>
<h2>Communist government and Soviet occupation</h2>
<p>Most Afghans hardly reacted when a faction of Afghanistan’s communist party took power in April 1978, because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.715">the Afghan government had traditionally played a very limited role outside of the larger cities</a>. </p>
<p>They did, however, rise in impromptu revolts when the communists sent their activists to conservative villages to teach Afghan children Marxist dogma. When the Soviets invaded in 1979, resistance spread to much of Afghanistan. Mujahideen – the Muslim warriors defending their land – <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801475788/organizations-at-war-in-afghanistan-and-beyond/#bookTabs=1">from all ethnic groups played a role in resisting the Soviet military</a>. </p>
<p>Later, a brutish Uzbek communist militia leader named Abdul Rashid Dostum eliminated most Uzbek Mujahideen, and most Hazara Mujahideen parties made a tacit agreement with the Soviets to reduce hostilities. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400834532">Most Pashtuns and Tajiks, however, continued to resist until the Soviet withdrawal</a> and the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul.</p>
<p>The Soviets promoted minority interests <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42909150?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">and gender equality</a> in areas of Afghanistan they controlled, which led the larger cities they controlled to evolve culturally to a point that made city life unrecognizably alien to many rural Afghans.</p>
<p>The withdrawal of the Soviet Red Army in February 1989 led to the cessation of U.S. aid to the Mujahideen parties, which turned Mujahideen field commanders, whose loyalty to party leaders was based on their ability to distribute financial and military resources, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801475788/organizations-at-war-in-afghanistan-and-beyond/#bookTabs=1">into militarized independent local leaders</a>. Similarly, the regime’s militias and units also became independent after its collapse in April 1992. </p>
<p>Afghanistan, particularly the Pashtun areas, became fragmented, with hundreds of local leaders and warlords fighting over territory, drug production, smuggling routes and populations to tax. While many local leaders cared about the welfare of their kith and kin, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501746420/warlord-survival/">some were warlords who abused fellow Afghans</a>. </p>
<h2>The first Taliban era</h2>
<p>In 1994, a group of previous Pashtun Mujahideen <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032248">formed the Taliban and managed to control most of Afghanistan</a>, including Kabul, by the time the U.S. invaded in late 2001. </p>
<p>The Taliban’s rise <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032248">was fueled by rural Pashtun support for its agenda</a> of ending warlord-generated insecurity, bringing back Pashtun prominence and recreating traditional Pashtun village life – as they imagined it to have been. The Taliban’s conservative views reflected the values of a large section of the public they governed in the south and east of the country.</p>
<p>The conservative rural Taliban, traumatized by decades of war, encountered an alien cultural environment when they took over Kabul. They reacted forcefully, limited urban women’s access to education and labor and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/23/hold-the-taliban-and-sharia-law-in-afghanistan">imposed strict limitations on dress, appearance and public behavior</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of Afghan women grieving at a funeral." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427865/original/file-20211021-27-1ef7md5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Afghan Hazaras face violence since the return of the Taliban.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AfghanistanHazarasUnderAttack/18185cafd3314754a4d7ed874d9f5347/photo?Query=hazara&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=303&currentItemNo=7">AP Photo/Rahmat Gul</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Afghans in urban areas, particularly women, and members of Afghan minorities did not by and large share the parochial Taliban understanding of their common faith. They were undermined, threatened or punished when they attempted to challenge Taliban restrictions. The Shiite Hazara, in particular, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0.htm">were subjected to brutal retaliatory attacks</a> when they resisted Taliban rule. </p>
<h2>The US occupation</h2>
<p>The U.S. military <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-led-attack-on-afghanistan-begins">invaded Afghanistan and allied with minority local leaders</a> and some Pashtun warlords to oust the Taliban. These warlords ended up filling most key posts in the regime the U.S.-led coalition established in Kabul.</p>
<p>For warlords from all backgrounds, it appeared to be a golden age. The rest of the Afghan population, even more so in Pashtun areas than in others, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/06/how-us-funded-abuses-led-failure-afghanistan">went back to suffering from warlords’ predatory behavior</a>.</p>
<p>In 2004, three years after the U.S. occupation began, the mostly Pashtun Taliban <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/files/taliban_winning_strategy.pdf">reorganized as an insurgent force to fight the U.S.-led occupation</a> and the regime it established in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Enterprising urban youths, including women, from historically disadvantaged minorities, <a href="https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1246&context=gj_etds">particularly the Shiite Hazara</a>, took advantage of aid, education programs and foreign-driven employment opportunities to advance. In contrast, the rural Pashtun, who suffered the brunt of the warfare between the Taliban and U.S.-led coalition, were set back economically and hardly benefited from investments in health and education.</p>
<p>One of the byproducts of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan was <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">the development of a local branch of the Islamic State, the Islamic State-Khorasan</a> (an Arabic name for the region). The organization was formed by defectors from the Taliban who felt that their leadership was too soft on the Americans. This group has engaged in attacks on Shiite civilians, whom it considers to be heretics and agents of Shiite Iran. It was responsible for attacks on U.S. troops such as the August 2021 <a href="https://apnews.com/article/europe-france-evacuations-kabul-9e457201e5bbe75a4eb1901fedeee7a1">attack on the Kabul airport</a>. It is also <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-isis-k-two-terrorism-experts-on-the-group-behind-the-deadly-kabul-airport-attack-and-its-rivalry-with-the-taliban-166873">antagonistic toward the Taliban</a>.</p>
<h2>The return of Taliban</h2>
<p>The return of the Taliban to Kabul after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in August 2021 is a return to a rural Pashtun order. Most Taliban leaders are rural Pashtuns who received their education in conservative madrassas in Afghanistan or Pashtun areas of Pakistan. <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/whos-who-in-taliban-interim-government/2360424">Only three of the 24 members</a> of the Taliban interim government are not Pashtuns – they are Tajiks.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 115,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>And the Taliban are running the country <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674032248">the way they imagine life in Pashtun villages used to be</a> before Afghanistan sank into perpetual war in 1979. The Taliban movement caters to the sensibilities of conservative rural Pashtun Muslims. Their understanding of Islam is not necessarily shared by other Afghans, religious as they may be.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the Islamic State group is conducting massive terrorist attacks on Shiite mosques, a tactic that originated with the Iraqi branch of the organization. One aim of the Islamic State’s attacks, I believe, is to drive recruitment that has weakened over the past years by appealing to anti-Shiite sentiment among the Pashtun, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban successes on the battlefield.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/168059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdulkader Sinno does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of Afghan affairs explains the religious affiliations of different ethnic groups in Afghanistan and why they may not share a common understanding of Islam.Abdulkader Sinno, Associate Professor of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1667762021-09-13T12:15:26Z2021-09-13T12:15:26ZWho are the Hazara of Afghanistan? An expert on Islam explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419910/original/file-20210908-24-80wscj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C4891%2C3172&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Hazara have long been targeted in Afghanistan, and many fear violence will intensify with the Taliban in power.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/afghan-community-in-greece-demonstate-in-central-athens-on-news-photo/1232877052?adppopup=true">Dimitris Lampropoulos/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The land we now call Afghanistan has been a place of constant migration through its mountainous passes. Its linguistic, cultural and religious diversity is a result of millennia of trade along <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=p4_it5yw9WsC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">the Silk Road</a>. More than a dozen ethnic groups are mentioned in <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2020/05/14/long-read-sowing-seeds-of-ethnic-division-afghanistans-constitution-and-electoral-system/">the country’s constitution</a>.</p>
<p>Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban means that some minorities are again at heightened risk of persecution.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=X3PKZLgAAAAJ">religion and politics scholar</a> focused on the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khoja">Khoja</a> – Shiite Muslim communities originally from India but <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/25593">now scattered across the globe</a> – I have studied the precariousness of being a religious and ethnic minority in the region. </p>
<p>Among the Afghans who have the most to lose today, I would argue, are groups with a different interpretation of Islam – particularly the Shiite Hazara community, the nation’s <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghan-ethnic-groups-brief-investigation">third-largest ethnic group</a>, who have <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/hazaras-afghan-state/">faced discrimination</a> for more than a century.</p>
<p>In July 2021, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/afghanistan-taliban-responsible-for-brutal-massacre-of-hazara-men-new-investigation/">nine Hazara men were killed by Taliban fighters</a> in southeastern Afghanistan, according to a report by Amnesty International – echoing previous periods under the Taliban when the Hazara <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif#">were targeted</a>.</p>
<h2>Rich history</h2>
<p>The Hazara’s roots in South Asia go back centuries. Their ancestors <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3628602">are said to include Mongol troops</a>, and recent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fsigen.2019.06.018">genetic</a> analysis has confirmed partial Mongol ancestry. </p>
<p>Today, the Hazara comprise 10%-20% of the national population of Afghanistan, where their traditional homeland is in a central region <a href="https://iranicaonline.org/articles/hazara-1">called Hazarajat</a>. This makes them an important minority in a country of 38 million.</p>
<p>There are also significant Hazara communities <a href="http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1277/1/2009CreasyMTh.pdf">in Pakistan</a>, as well as a
Western diaspora in such countries as the United States and the U.K. Many Hazara outside Afghanistan fled during the violence of the past five decades, from a coup in 1973 and the Soviet invasion <a href="https://doi-org.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/10.1080/13504630601163353">to the Taliban’s rise</a> and the U.S.-led war.</p>
<h2>Frequent targets</h2>
<p>While most Hazara are Muslim, the majority belong to the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1353/isl.2014.0013">minority Shiite tradition</a>. Most Muslims around the world follow the Sunni tradition, which recognizes Muhammad’s companion Abu Bakr as his rightful successor. Shiite Muslims like the Hazara, however, believe that the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, should have succeeded Muhammad after his death in A.D. 632.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, as elsewhere, tensions between the majority Sunni Muslim population and Shiite Muslims has been a source of steady conflict. The Hazara continue to be targeted and brutally murdered by the Taliban <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Racism/SR/Call/mhhasrat.pdf">in Afghanistan</a> and its associates <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2018/11/09/hazarajat-lost-when-a-city-refused-to-bury-their-dead/">in Pakistan</a>. <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/04/afghanistan-withdrawal-taliban-isis-k-hazaras-shia-minority-rights/">Islamic State-affiliated groups</a> have also targeted Shiite communities in South Asia, including the Hazara.</p>
<p>The community has long been among Afghanistan’s poorest and faces <a href="https://apnews.com/article/islamic-state-group-shootings-05612533bbcbfa2d836d46d84b82ee92">daily harassment</a>, including in finding jobs.</p>
<h2>Not just religion</h2>
<p>The Taliban idealize a particular vision of Islamic “purity” and <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29970/1/WP022010_Brahimi.pdf">seek to impose it</a> through their strict rules. </p>
<p>To understand the Taliban only as Muslim extremists, however, is to miss the political and economic reality of why and how they operate in Afghanistan. Afghanistan produces the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1086/589673">vast majority</a> of the world’s opium, which is used to make heroin, and the Taliban <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-taliban-are-megarich-heres-where-they-get-the-money-they-use-to-wage-war-in-afghanistan-147411">control much of those profits</a>. Violence in the name of religion also helps the group expand its territory and <a href="https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=ohiou1319657998">enforce control</a>.</p>
<p>From this perspective, minorities like the Hazara pose a twofold threat to the Taliban. </p>
<p>First, their different traditions challenge the Taliban’s authority to claim religious truth. Their presence is a testament to an indigenous, pluralistic tradition of Islam that has accommodated multiple faiths over centuries, despite periods of brutal persecution. For example, the famous <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674503793">Bamiyan</a> Buddha statues in the heart of Hazara territory were respected for centuries by the surrounding community, until they were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. </p>
<p>Second, Afghanistan is a weak state where many tribes and communities cooperate or compete for power. Long-standing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.1998.10107842">ethnonationalist conflict</a> makes it in the Taliban’s interests to keep dissent to a minimum.</p>
<p>The Hazara’s security represents something bigger: the possibility of a pluralistic and multiethnic nation. Since the American withdrawal, however, thousands of Hazara who withstood years of hardship and violence have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/29/hazara-shias-flee-afghanistan-fearing-taliban-persecution">sought refuge</a> in Pakistan. For now, they and other minorities fear a period of increased oppression and dislocation under the Taliban.</p>
<p>[<em>This week in religion, a global roundup each Thursday.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-global-roundup">Sign up.</a>]</p>
<p></p><hr><p></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418525/original/file-20210830-33-yznmc8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Read all six articles in our <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/understanding-islam-108919">Understanding Islam series on TheConversation.com</a>, or we can deliver them straight to your inbox if you <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/understanding-islam-79">sign up for our email newsletter course</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iqbal Akhtar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the Taliban again in power in Afghanistan, minorities like the Hazara may have the most to lose.Iqbal Akhtar, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Florida International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955302018-04-24T11:50:33Z2018-04-24T11:50:33ZEyewitness: a deadly bombing in Kabul<p>It’s the day after <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/afghanistan-deaths-attack-id-voter-registration-centre-kabul-180422063114761.html">yet another explosion</a> in the Afghan capital, Kabul, this time at a voter registration centre. Another 69 innocent Afghans <a href="http://www.bbc.com/persian/afghanistan-43864238">confirmed killed</a> (so far) and another 120 injured. My colleague Reza Hussaini and I are sat in our office, each scrolling through Facebook posts, trying to avoid the most graphic and bloody photos of the bombing.<br>
We are working together on a <a href="https://blogs.city.ac.uk/sociology/2018/04/16/dr-liza-schuster-presents-on-migration-policy-making-in-and-about-afghanistan-at-kabul-university/">project</a> examining Afghanistan’s migration decisionmaking, policymaking and migration culture. For months, we’ve been asking what makes someone go, what makes someone stay, and why people change their minds about going or staying.</p>
<p>Over the past 18 months, we’ve been interviewing families from different ethnic groups at regular intervals. All feel the same insecurity; all worry whether those who go to work or to school will return in the evening. But the fear is particularly sharp in the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/06/afghanistan-hazaras-160623093601127.html">Hazara</a> community, a primarily Shia minority group who have been specifically targeted.</p>
<p>The voter registration centre bombing happened in the neighbourhood of Dashte Barchi, which I know very well. When I first came to Kabul six years ago, it was the area where I felt most at ease, with no outward signs of insecurity. Visiting the area recently for the first time in months, I was shocked by the number of heavily armed police and police vehicles, especially surrounding Marafat school, which was hosting an annual school celebration. My companion, a Hazara, confessed to feeling afraid, wondering if there would be an attack.</p>
<p>Reza, like three other members of my team, is Hazara himself, and Barchi is the heart of their community. He tells me that since the April 22 bombing, the phone has not stopped ringing, as friends call to ask what to do now.</p>
<h2>Fight or flight?</h2>
<p>Some are calling for a demonstration, but most say there’s no point. “It doesn’t have any effect, the government doesn’t care about us. It will just bring us together as another target for another attack.”</p>
<p>Some suggest now is the time to leave, that they have already sacrificed so many of their people and cannot sacrifice any more. Some reject that: “No, that is exactly what these people want,” said one. “They want to drive us across the borders.” Others argue that the so-called Islamic State (IS) is targeting Shia Muslims because they don’t want the Hazara to participate in this year’s elections.</p>
<p>Still others argue that “we need to arm ourselves again – we need to defend ourselves”. They take to social media to declare that the time for crying is done, and now is the time to channel those emotions into anger and fight. But fight against whom? IS, which has been active in Afghanistan <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-stopping-islamic-states-afghan-operation-means-tackling-the-taliban-63088">for some years</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/22/dozens-dead-in-kabul-bombing-at-voter-registration-centre-afghanistan">claimed this attack</a>, but some are blaming the government, arguing that since it’s unable or unwilling to provide security, they will have to take matters into their own hands.</p>
<p>The fear in this community is palpable. Most of this year’s bombings have targeted the Hazara; in 2017, there were four major attacks on the Hazara community in Kabul, but there have been three in the past six weeks alone.</p>
<p>Later in the afternoon, I attend a performance based on our research by the Theatre Department at Kabul University. The performance is not as tight or as focused as it should be. At the final curtain call, one of the students tries to pay tribute to those who died but collapses, unable to speak.</p>
<p>I look out into the audience and wonder how many are deciding to leave their homes – and how many will be able to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liza Schuster's research is funded by the ESRC-GCRF. She is affiliated with AMASO (Afghanistan Migration Advice and Support Organisation) </span></em></p>An attack on a voter registration killed at least 57 people, and left scores more deciding where to go now.Liza Schuster, Reader in Sociology, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/850912017-10-04T19:12:04Z2017-10-04T19:12:04ZHow refugees overcome the odds to become entrepreneurs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188708/original/file-20171004-24204-zc7st2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The research group included Hazara who opened kebab shops in Adelaide.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Refugees face monumental challenges when starting a business. Many lack formal education, capital, social capital (relationships in the community), English language skills, and knowledge of the local market and regulations.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/2017-10/From%20Boats%20to%20Businesses%20Full%20Report%20-%20Web.pdf">Our research</a> into a community of Hazara refugees provides some insight into how they overcome the odds. Over time they saved money from their jobs to raise start-up capital, often starting their business in partnership with friends and family members. Some turned their incarceration into an advantage, by partnering with other Hazara they met in camps to create businesses. </p>
<p>In short, through hard work, determination and risk-taking, the Hazara entrepreneurs learnt English, built up capital and social networks, and became familiar with Adelaide and its opportunities.</p>
<p>We interviewed 31 <a href="https://theconversation.com/refugee-populations-across-the-globe-the-facts-7557">Hazara refugees</a> in Adelaide – 29 males and two females, 15 of whom arrived by boat and spent time in Australian detention centres. These entrepreneurs have created over 180 local jobs, not including one business that has over 870 subcontractors.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-are-helping-others-in-their-situation-as-social-entrepreneurs-80475">Refugees are helping others in their situation as social entrepreneurs</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The most unlikely entrepreneurs?</h2>
<p>At first glance, refugees – and the Hazara in particular – are the most unlikely entrepreneurs. The challenges they face in starting a business (such as accessing credit and a lack of knowledge of potential opportunities in the local market) make it almost paradoxical that they do so well. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3418.0Media%20Release12009-10?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3418.0&issue=2009-10&num=&view=">Overall</a>, many immigrant groups have a higher rate of self-employment than the Australian-born. This can be explained more in terms of necessity than that some cultures are more entrepreneurial than others. Formal and informal racial discrimination can block access to jobs, for instance. </p>
<p>But refugees are unlike other immigrants in that they cannot rely on large family and community networks to help them raise capital or generate a market niche. </p>
<p>Many refugees also have experience running businesses prior to settling in Australia or other countries. One-third of those in our study had personal or familial entrepreneurial experience in Afghanistan. For refugees globally, these businesses are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-05-2013-0075">often in the informal economy</a>, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.unhcr.org/afr/news/stories/2017/4/58e37af94/refugees-demonstrate-entrepreneurship-and-creativity.html">Other research</a> on refugee entrepreneurship shows that the Hazara community in Adelaide <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/news/alexander-betts-refugees-are-natural-entrepreneurs">isn’t an isolated case</a>. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/files-1/refugee-economies-2014.pdf">study</a> of Congolese, Somali and Rowandan Refugees in Uganda, researchers found that 60% were self-employed. Of these refugee businesses, 21% in urban areas and 15% in rural areas employ other people. What’s more, 44% of those employed by refugees in urban areas are native Ugandans.</p>
<h2>Overcoming the odds</h2>
<p>The wide variety of businesses started by those we spoke to show how enmeshed the Hazara community has become in the local market. </p>
<p>Seventeen of the Hazara entrepreneurs started up either charcoal kebab shops or small groceries selling imported products from Afghanistan, the Middle East or India. But others started painting businesses, day care centres, salvage lots, driving schools, travel agencies and translation services, or sold tyres and furniture, and printed signs. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/2017-10/From%20Boats%20to%20Businesses%20Full%20Report%20-%20Web.pdf">story of the Bayani brothers</a>, Asef and Ali, two Hazara immigrants who started a travel agency, encapsulates how many refugees systematically overcome the challenges in front of them. When Ali and his siblings arrived in Australia they had no English skills. After 40 days in Woomera Detention Centre, the family were let out and began studying.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Me and my younger brother went to primary school, my older brother and sister to Adelaide Secondary College to learn English.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Soon Ali and his brother started an interpreting agency. They landed a contract translating from English to Dari for the Department of Immigration. Through this business, which brought them in contact with many other immigrants and refugees, the brothers stumbled across an even greater opportunity.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A lot of these clients wanted to go back to their country and asked us, “Can you organise it?” We referred so many, we thought, “Why not do our own?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The two brothers now run both a travel agency and a translation service, through which they employ 870 subcontractors of many nationalities.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-need-support-to-continue-their-careers-heres-how-it-can-be-done-76151">Refugees need support to continue their careers – here's how it can be done</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Previousproducts/3418.0Media%20Release12009-10?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3418.0&issue=2009-10&num=&view=">data</a> and <a href="https://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/files-1/refugee-economies-2014.pdf">research</a> clearly show that humanitarian refugees are disproportionately entrepreneurial. And this is despite the many challenges that they often have to face.</p>
<p>In this light, it may be time to rethink the negative political and social discourse in Australia that constructs “boat people” in particular – and refugees in general – as a drain on the economy and incompatible with Australian society. </p>
<p>As the remarkable story of the Hazara in Adelaide shows, the journey from boats to businesses is difficult but possible with the hard work and determination to take advantage of the opportunities that Australia has given them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jock Collins receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Humanitarian refugees face many barriers to becoming entrepreneurs, but research shows they are disproportionately entrepreneurial.Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/505752015-11-12T02:21:52Z2015-11-12T02:21:52ZAfghans march against terrorism and for a political system to secure their future<p>The Afghan capital Kabul witnessed a historic protest on Wednesday when tens of thousands of people <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-11/thousands-protest-in-afghanistan-against-hazara-murders-in-zabul/6932978">marched</a> to the presidential palace. It was the largest demonstration in Afghanistan’s modern history. Demonstrators carried the coffins and photos of seven innocent people – including two women and a nine-year-old girl – whose bodies were found on Saturday.</p>
<p>Afghan officials <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/world/asia/afghan-fighters-loyal-to-isis-beheaded-7-hostages-officials-say.html?_r=0">reportedly said</a> Islamic State (IS) had kidnapped these ethnic Hazara people several months ago and held them in the Arghandab district of southern Zabul province. While serious questions remain about the circumstances of the kidnapping and killings, the captives had been brutally beheaded just days ago. Their bodies were sent to their families in the Jaghori district of Ghazni province.</p>
<p>In a marked sign of respect, national security forces allowed protesters to move freely around the square in front of the palace. The demonstration was largely peaceful, except when guards opened fire on protesters who tried to breach the palace gate. A presidential spokesperson said ten protesters were wounded.</p>
<p>The protest had been looming for a long time. At one level, it was a demonstration of national solidarity against violence and terrorism. Amid increasing insecurity, highlighted by the <a href="http://warontherocks.com/2015/10/the-fall-of-kunduz-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-of-afghanistan/">fall of the provincial centre Kunduz</a> to the Taliban, the demonstrators chanted in support of Afghanistan’s shaky political system.</p>
<p>At the same time, reflecting anger and disappointment with the poor and discriminatory performance of the national unity government, the protesters called on the international community to continue supporting the Afghan people’s struggle against violence.</p>
<h2>Goal is not to overthrow the system</h2>
<p>Street protests and uprisings are not new for the people of Afghanistan. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kabul University students protested and overthrew the king, ending over two centuries of rule by the monarchy. In the 1980s, the Mujahideens’ violent uprisings caused the fall of the Soviet-backed government, followed by a brutal civil war in Kabul in the 1990s.</p>
<p>Despite differences in form and timing, previous protests and uprisings shared two important features. </p>
<p>First, the pace of political reform failed to match the public’s desire for change, resulting in chaos and disorder. As political scientist Samuel Huntington has <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-XiwT0xC__0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Social disorder] is the product of rapid social change and the rapid mobilisation of new groups into politics coupled with the slow development of political institutions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Second, the target of the protests and uprisings was the political system of the time.</p>
<p>However, on Wednesday, the demonstrators chanted in support of the nascent political system, a mark of its strong legitimacy among a majority of the Afghan people.</p>
<p>In another significant development, the protesters came from all walks of life and included men and women and all ethnic groups of the country: Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and other minority groups. They emphasised national solidarity over their ethnic and sectarian differences. </p>
<p>Speaking on the local Tolo TV, protest representative Zaki Daryabi said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Their demand goes beyond the safety of the Hazaras and they want justice for all Afghans regardless of their ethnicity, sect and location.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the same day, people in Zabul province, mainly from the Pashtun ethnic group, organised a <a href="http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/22289-zabul-residents-protest-beheading-of-7-hostages">separate protest</a> in support of the victims’ families and the demonstration in Kabul.</p>
<p>These developments reflect significant social and political changes in Afghanistan over the past decade. Among other things, it has a widely legitimate constitution and national security force.</p>
<p>In 2014, from a very low enrolment base in 2001, around eight million students attended schools. About 250,000 students, including 20% women, were enrolled in 144 higher education institutions.</p>
<p>Today, the internet, mobile phones and other media connect Afghans to the outside world more than ever before. Facebook users played the leading role in the organisation and coverage of Wednesday’s demonstration. Some local <a href="http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan">TV stations</a> provided live broadcasts.</p>
<h2>Leaders get a wake-up call</h2>
<p>These protests should serve as a wake-up call for government leaders to work more for the security of the people. To do so, they must put aside personal and political differences. As a first step, more than a year after the national unity government took office, they should work together to appoint a defence minister.</p>
<p>As he <a href="http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/22284-ghani-addresses-nation-and-calls-for-calm-promises-justice">promised</a> justice, President Ashraf Ghani and his political allies need to review the past year’s security policies and demonstrate greater political will in fighting the Taliban and other insurgent groups. After the fall of Kunduz and previous killings in Jalriz, Ghor and Badakhshan, which were similar to the latest beheadings, military support from Kabul arrived too late or did not arrive at all.</p>
<p>Poor logistical organisation and widespread corruption no doubt played a role. However, concern is growing about the true intent and the political will of Ghani and his security advisers in fighting the Taliban, as they all belong to the same ethnic group.</p>
<p>Finally, the protests are a call for continued support from other nations, including Australia. It is promising that General John Campbell, commander of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, called on Wednesday for national unity in Afghanistan and <a href="http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/22290-kabul-protest-an-opportunity-to-unite-afghans-campbell">reiterated</a> the commitments of the United States and other NATO governments to the “peace process” with the Taliban.</p>
<p>In reality, the “peace process” is in limbo. This is because of infighting among <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-11451718">Taliban factions</a> and political differences between Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan, which supported the Taliban in the past.</p>
<p>As such, Afghans are demanding a clearer policy by their government and the international community towards the Taliban and other insurgent groups which continue to murder civilians. In particular, Australia should add the Taliban factions to its <a href="http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/Listedterroristorganisations/Pages/default.aspx">listed terrorist organisations</a>. </p>
<p>Otherwise, ongoing insecurity, extreme poverty and poor governance threaten to destroy the legitimacy of the shaky political system and, with it, Afghanistan’s future as a country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50575/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Reza Yunespour is affiliated with indigo foundation, a non-for-profit and independent Australian organisation. </span></em></p>Afghanistan has seen mass protests before, but Wednesday’s was different. In a show of national unity and support for the political system, protesters called for continued international help.Ali Reza Yunespour, PhD Researcher, International and Political Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329392014-10-14T19:32:23Z2014-10-14T19:32:23ZAustralia’s folly returns Afghan Hazaras to torture and death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61580/original/ryv4r74m-1413244315.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hazaras have long been persecuted in Afghanistan, but those returned from countries like Australia are in particular danger of being tortured and murdered.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Afghans_of_Day_Kundi_in_2009.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/ISAF Public Affairs Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been a bad time lately for Afghan Hazaras with Australian connections. In late September, the shocking news came through that the Taliban had tortured and murdered an Australian of Afghan background, Sayed Habib Musawi. The Taliban had stopped the bus on which he was travelling in rural Afghanistan and pulled him from it. </p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4096300.htm">interview with the ABC</a>, the deputy governor of Ghazni province where the killing took place, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, flatly stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of course the reason is that he was an Afghan-Australian … He came from a country that the Taliban thinks is an infidel country. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hard on the heels of this tragic report came another story, in its own way even more disturbing. At least in the case of Musawi, it was his own decision, however fateful, that resulted in his being in Afghanistan. This was not the case with Zainullah Naseri, whose horrific experiences were recounted in <a href="http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/10/04/taliban-tortures-abbott-government-deportee/14123448001068#.VDts4aVOdHg">The Saturday Paper</a> by Sydney-based freelance journalist and photographer Abdul Karim Hekmat.</p>
<p>On August 26 2014, Naseri was deported to Afghanistan from Australia. This was despite last-minute efforts in the Federal Circuit Court to prevent the Department of Immigration and Border Protection from removing him. In mid-September, seeking to travel to the district in Ghazni where his family lived, he was seized by six Taliban, tortured and — on the strength of his Australian driver’s licence and pictures in his mobile phone of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge — accused of being an infidel.</p>
<p>I have seen photos, not published in the press, of the injuries Naseri sustained from the Taliban’s vicious beating. Only by a stroke of good luck, namely the outbreak of fighting in the immediate vicinity that distracted the Taliban’s attention, was he able to escape.</p>
<p>The experiences of Sayed Habib Musawi and Zainullah Naseri are not surprising to anyone familiar with the long history of persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan. While some Afghans of non-Hazara background have on occasion sought to play this down, the evidence is both clear and chilling. </p>
<h2>A long history of killings and persecution</h2>
<p>Hazaras have a distinctive physical appearance and are known to be overwhelmingly members of the Shiite Muslim minority. This has left them doubly exposed. </p>
<p>In August 1998, the Taliban <a href="http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0.htm">massacred 2000 Hazaras</a> in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. The analyst Ahmed Rashid <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=kIBgqHWq658C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=%22genocidal+in+its+ferocity%22+Rashid&source=bl&ots=jYlUzN_fnZ&sig=h3b7OoDCx9KR_5rGlCeNvqA0sKg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dWg8VKm3N9fh8AWZ9YDgDg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22genocidal%20in%20its%20ferocity%22%20Rashid&f=false">described the massacre</a> as “genocidal in its ferocity”. </p>
<p>Killings of Hazaras have continued since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in late 2001. For example, as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/25/us-afghanistan-beheading-idUSTRE65O2ML20100625">reported by Reuters</a> newsagency:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Afghanistan, June 25 - The bodies of 11 men, their heads cut off and placed next to them, have been found in a violent southern province of Afghanistan, a senior police official said on Friday. A police patrol discovered the bodies on Thursday in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said police official Mohammad Gulab Wardak. “This was the work of the Taliban. They beheaded these men because they were ethnic Hazaras and Shi’ite Muslims,” he said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On December 6 2011, a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16046079">suicide bomber attacked</a> Shiite Hazaras at a place of commemoration in central Kabul during the Ashura festival, which marks the anniversary of the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. Almost simultaneously, a bomb in Mazar-e Sharif also killed Hazaras. The Kabul bomb killed at least 55 people and the Mazar bomb four more. </p>
<p>The Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini was awarded the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2012-Breaking-News-Photography">2012 Pulitzer Prize</a> for his photograph of the aftermath of the Kabul atrocity. But many other killings of course go unreported in Western news services and escape the attention of Western embassies behind their sandbags and blast-proof walls in Kabul.</p>
<h2>Refugee rulings defy DFAT warnings</h2>
<p>Zainullah Naseri’s experience highlights a very peculiar dimension of official Australian analyses of Afghanistan. Different agencies seem to live in different worlds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The DFAT Smartraveller website warns in stark terms that all of Afghanistan is unsafe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m_42-oXu4WYJ:smartraveller.gov.au/advice/afghanistan+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au">DFAT</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns in the starkest terms of the dangers of travel to Afghanistan. In its <a href="http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Afghanistan">“Do not travel” advice dated September 16 2014</a>, DFAT writes of “the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack”. Attacks, DFAT notes, “can occur anywhere, any time” and: “No province can be considered immune from violence.” Furthermore, DFAT warns:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Overland travel is dangerous. Taliban and al-Qa'ida members are active in many parts of the country, thereby creating a significant security risk.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are prescient comments indeed. However, warnings of this kind, which DFAT has been voicing for a long time, seem to have had precious little impact on the handling of Naseri’s application for refugee protection. </p>
<p>His case <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/RRTA/2012/1116.html">was assessed</a> by a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal, Paul Millar, in December 2012. Millar expressed no doubts about Naseri’s credibility, but inadvertently showed how those who lack a “feel” for the situation in a disrupted state such as Afghanistan can get things horribly wrong. In effect, he narrowed his focus to the possibility of there being a safe route from Kabul to Naseri’s district:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Tribunal is only considering the route for the applicant to make a journey from Kabul back to his native area. In those circumstances, the Tribunal accepts that the applicant is at risk as a Hazara of suffering harm in making that journey but the Tribunal finds that the level of risk does not reach the threshold of a real chance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Millar added that “country information before the Tribunal is to the effect that Afghans who return to their country after seeking asylum in Western countries are not targeted for harm on that basis”. </p>
<h2>No Hazara can safely return to Afghanistan</h2>
<p>Given what happened to Sayed Habib Musawi and Zainullah Naseri, there is a terrifying irony in such comments. Naseri should never have been forced back to Afghanistan, essentially because the fluidity of the situation there militates <em>fundamentally</em> against the kind of bold confidence that the Refugee Review Tribunal put on display. The decision that led to Naseri’s removal was deeply flawed when it was made, and badly out of date by the time he was removed.</p>
<p>On August 6 2013, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) affirmed this point in new <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/51ffdca34.html">Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-seekers from Afghanistan</a>. These state that “while the conflict was previously located in the south and east, it now affects most parts of the country”, and point to the “volatility and fluidity of the armed conflict in Afghanistan in terms of the difficulty of identifying potential areas of relocation that are durably safe”. The guidelines identify “men and boys of fighting age” as potentially being in need of international protection, along with “members of minority religious groups”. </p>
<p>As long as this remains the case — and there is no sign that things are likely to change any time soon — there should be an absolute moratorium on the involuntary removal of Hazara asylum seekers to Afghanistan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Maley is a member of the Board of the Refugee Council of Australia. </span></em></p>It has been a bad time lately for Afghan Hazaras with Australian connections. In late September, the shocking news came through that the Taliban had tortured and murdered an Australian of Afghan background…William Maley, Professor and Director, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.