Iranian civil society speaking up for Afghans' rights
Iranians are pressuring the government to help Afghan nationals with the problems they face, including discrimination and lack of access to schools.
News in recent weeks about Afghan nationals and refugees being harassed in Iran has focused the attention of civil society activists as well as the media on the problems that members of this community face.
Shahrvand reported Dec. 16 that a third-grade teacher in an Afghan-only Pakdasht school, southeast of Tehran, had forced four students who had forgotten their textbooks to stick their hands in a toilet. The news went viral in Reformist, moderate and even conservative publications. A number of newspapers (including Donyay-e-Eghtesad, Farhikhtegan, Quds, Jahan-e-Sanat and Shargh) and news websites (among them Aftab, Alef, Khabar online and Tabnak) published articles critical of the punishment.
These reports coincided with the posting of a three-minute video that went viral, showing policemen harassing Afghan refugees. In the footage, filmed by two police officers using a cell phone camera, the Afghan refugees are shown following their orders to do jump squats. They then tell the Afghans to look into the camera and respond to their questions: Do you like me? Are you happy with me, my fellow citizen? I haven’t hurt you, have I? Do you like me? The Tasnim news agency described the video as shameful. Two years earlier, another viral video had shown a police officer telling Afghan refugees to hit themselves in the head.
In the recent cases discussed here, officials in the Education Ministry and in the police force confronted the offenders and fired them, but the reprimands have had no effect on ending discriminating and humiliating actions toward the refugees.
