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Australia Is Deporting Afghan Hazaras to Face Torture and Death by the Taliban

Refugees from Afghanistan's Hazara minority are being forcibly removed from Australia. Back in their homeland, they're subject to Taliban persecution and criminal extortion.
Photo by Karla K. Marshall/USACE

Australia is beginning to deport Hazara Afghans, sending them back to a deteriorating security situation in a country where they could face persecution and death.

The Hazara people have suffered a history of bloody persecution under the Taliban. They are predominantly Shia Muslims living country where 80 percent are Sunni. They're Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group, forming just 9 percent of its population and have made up a large component of Australia's refugee intake since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.

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Zainullah Naseri was the first to be returned. After just weeks in Afghanistan he was stopped at a Taliban roadside checkpoint on the way to his home in Jaghori.

"He was kidnapped for being Hazara but also because he had been in the West," Ian Rintoul, an Australian refugee advocate, told VICE News. "People returning from the West are seen as easy prey, people think they can use them to extort money."

Rintoul has extensive contacts in Australia's refugee communities. He said Naseri was lucky enough to escape, but is now in hiding and living on the streets of Kabul.

Talking to the Saturday Paper after his escape, Naseri said of his deportation: "I told them 100 times not to deport me [because] I would be killed. But they did not believe me."

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Earlier in the year, another Hazara Afghan refugee, Sayed Habib Musawi, also returned to Afghanistan from Australia but he was even less fortunate, according to the Guardian. Musawi, who was attempting to visit his family, was captured by the Taliban, tortured and killed.

Another Hazara asylum seeker, an unnamed 33-year-old, was scheduled to be deported by the Australian government on Wednesday.

The decision to deport Hazara migrants was made by Australia's Refugee Review Tribunal. It has the power to determine whether certain refugees — those on protection visas — can be safely sent home. The theory is that Australia doesn't have an obligation to offer shelter to refugees if their place of origin is now safe.

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Yet Afghanistan has always been a dangerous place for the Hazara. After the Taliban's emergence in 1994 they became some of the first victims to be subjected to the movement's brutality. The Taliban declared that Shia were not true Muslims, opening the door to decades of persecution for the Hazara and others.

When the Taliban took the city of Mazar-i Sharif in August 1998, the newly installed governor, Mullah Manon Niazi, delivered a public speech stating that all Shia Muslims must convert to Sunni Islam, leave Afghanistan, or face death.

Then at least 2,000 civilians, most of whom were Hazaras, were killed in the city.

Human Rights Watch has previously said it has "grave concerns" about the plight of Hazara people in Taliban-administered areas.Disregarding this, Australia began returning Hazara Afghans in August 2014.

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"The security situation is deteriorating massively," said Rintoul. "Gun battles and explosions are increasingly common in Kabul." He says there are hundreds of Hazara Afghan refugees in Australia who now face possible deportation.

"Most of these are from Jaghori, and despite evidence that the dangerous situation around Jaghori justifies these people's refugee status, the board is choosing not to recognize this," Rintoul explained.

Afghan Hazaras generally do not have travel documents or passports issued by the Afghan government, so Australia has not been able to be return them to Afghanistan. It is only with the Afghan government's recent cooperation in making the necessary documents available that Australia has been able to begin deportations.

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"It's clear they're not yet able to do this on a mass scale," said Rintoul, "but that they're doing it at all is very worrying." He added that those who are forcibly sent back are given no support and often become destitute, with few economic opportunities.

"It's not a case of ethnic cleansing at this stage but we have seen ethnic cleansing in Afghanistan in the past and the deteriorating situation suggests that this could be where things are heading."

Talking to the Guardian, Benjamin Lee, a human rights lawyer for the UN in Afghanistan, said: "Particular ethnic groups, including the Hazara, have been disproportionately targeted, but the point I would convey is that it's simply not safe to send anyone back, regardless of their ethnicity."

As foreign troops leave the country, after their 13-year presence, the security situation in Afghanistan has only got worse. The United Nations said 4,853 civilians were killed during the first half of 2014, a 24 percent rise compared with 2013, which in turn saw 14 percent more than 2012.

So far three Hazaras have been deported. Their fates in the fledgling Afghan state may determine how the Refugee Review Tribunal looks at future cases and decides what will happen to the many others that, for now, remain in Australian care.

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Image via Flickr