Attraction to the UN to Defend Hazaras in Afghanistan

To: H.E. António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-Basic

CC:H.E. Ambassador Barbara Woodward, Everlasting Consultant of the UK to the UN and President of United Nations Safety Council

H.E. Ambassador Federico Villegas, Everlasting Consultant of Argentina and President of United Nations Human Rights Council

Excellencies,

We’re scripting this letter to precise our grave concern concerning the escalation of violence focusing on the Hazara Shia communities in Afghanistan. We’re writing to demand your quick motion to deal with these focused assaults, which may quantity to crime towards humanity, and when taken collectively, represent an act of genocide. We consider the persistent and deliberate marketing campaign of violence towards the Shia Hazara group in Afghanistan requires an pressing and coordinated response by the United Nations and the worldwide group.

On April 19, 2022, a highschool and an schooling heart in a Hazara neighborhood in West of Kabul, Afghanistan had been bombed, killing and maiming scores of college youngsters. The subsequent day, an assault on a Shia Hazara mosque within the northern metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif was bombed, killing thirty one  and injuring eighty seven worshipers attending prayers in the course of the holy month of Ramadan. Native stories, nonetheless, point out a a lot larger degree of casualties. One other mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif was additionally attacked on the identical day and in the identical method, killing and injuring dozens. On April 28, two explosions focusing on civilian mini-buses in Mazar-i-Sharif killed not less than eleven and wounded not less than eighteen Hazaras. On the identical day, 5 Hazara miners touring in a civilian passenger automotive had been stopped and shot lifeless in Samangan province.

Whereas terrorist assaults such because the final week’s horrific assaults on Sufi Mosques in Kunduz and Kabul provinces proceed to have an effect on civilians all through Afghanistan, the assaults on Hazaras signify a sample lately that focus on Hazara-Shia mosques, colleges, schooling facilities, public gatherings, sports activities golf equipment, public transports, and even maternity hospitals. Within the first six months of 2021 UNAMA recorded 20 deliberate assaults towards the Hazara ethnic group, leading to round 500 civilian casualties. The Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP), an affiliate group of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), claimed duty for many assaults, together with current incidents in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, though perpetrators haven’t claimed duty for some assaults.

Residents, observers of Afghanistan, and worldwide human rights teams have raised fixed concern about such a rising pattern of focused violence towards Hazaras. In October 2021, after a collection of assaults on Shia Hazara mosques in Kunduz and Kandahar, that killed and wounded tons of, Human Rights Watch characterised the assaults as “designed to unfold terror and inflict most struggling, notably on Afghanistan’s Hazara group.” The assertion highlighted that “[t]he quite a few assaults focusing on Hazaras quantity to crimes towards humanity, and people accountable needs to be delivered to justice.” 

In Might 2021, the Afghanistan Impartial Human Rights Fee (AIHRC) referred to as on the Afghan authorities and the worldwide group to think about the Hazaras as a “inhabitants vulnerable to warfare crimes, crimes towards humanity, ethnic cleaning or genocide”. In July 2021, Genocide Watch issued an emergency warning for Afghanistan, stating, “The Hazara spiritual minority is a portent of an approaching genocide.” In August 2021, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum issued an analogous assertion underlining the chance of genocide towards Hazaras in Afghanistan.

Hazaras have an extended historical past of persecution in Afghanistan by the hands of state and non-state actors such because the Taliban and different extremist teams. This historical past and up to date occasions align with the warning components of mass atrocity crimes that the United Nations recognized within the 2014 Framework of Evaluation for Atrocity Crimes.

The return of the Taliban to energy has made the Hazaras extra weak and topic to elevated violence. On August 19, 2021, Amnesty Worldwide launched a report documenting the Taliban’s focused assaults towards Hazaras and referred to as the group liable for the “brutal bloodbath of Hazara males” in Ghazni and Daykundi provinces. Since coming to energy in August 2021, the Taliban forcibly eliminated tons of of Hazara households from their houses and villages in Helmand, Uruzgan, Daykundi, and Balkh provinces. That is compounded by the Taliban historical past of brutality towards the group, together with massacring 1000’s of Hazaras in Mazar-i-Sharif (1998), Bamyan (2001), and Zabul (between 1996 and 2001).

In January 2022, following its report on Afghanistan, the UK Parliament’s Home of Lords Choose Committee on Worldwide Relations and Defence established a bi-cameral and cross-party inquiry staff on the state of affairs of Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The report said that “The Hazaras have an extended historical past of struggling state persecution on each ethnic and sectarian grounds.”

Following these most up-to-date assaults focusing on Hazaras in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, human rights teams and officers within the worldwide group, together with The UN Particular Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett, expressed considerations about these “focused assaults on  Hazaras”, and referred to as for “quick investigation and accountability” to “finish such human rights violations.” Comparable statements of condemnation and requires motion have been made by particular representatives and Ministers of Overseas Affairs within the EU, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions to the UN and in lots of international locations in Europe, North America, and South Asia additionally expressed considerations and demanded quick worldwide consideration to assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructures in Afghanistan, notably in Hazaras and Shia communities.

Nevertheless, extra should be performed to guard the Hazaras in Afghanistan, particularly by the United Nations. Thus, we, the undersigned group of intellectuals, lecturers, human rights, media, and civil society activists from Afghanistan and around the globe, urge the United Nations to take quick actions addressing human rights state of affairs of the Hazaras in Afghanistan, and undertake acceptable measures to guard the group towards dangers of genocide and crimes towards humanity. We urge you to:

• Name a particular session of the United Nations Safety Council to debate, as matter of urgency, the state of affairs of the Hazaras and undertake a decision making certain that the group will likely be protected towards such heinous focused assaults;
• Name for a particular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to debate and tackle the continuing genocidal assaults on Hazaras, and work to forestall such atrocities and produce the perpetrators to justice;
• Launch an instantaneous investigation into the focused killing of the Hazara and Shias in Afghanistan, and use devices underneath the worldwide regulation to deal with and put an finish to the perpetual killings of Hazaras;
• Request the UN Particular Rapporteur on Human Rights Scenario in Afghanistan to gather and publicize substantiated info regarding grave violations of worldwide human rights regulation, together with breaches of the Conference on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide dedicated towards the Hazaras;
• Request UNAMA and the UN Particular Rapporteur on Human Rights Scenario in Afghanistan to submit a particular report on the state of affairs of Hazaras figuring out pressing and sensible measures to guard the group towards focused assaults and mass atrocities.

Sincerely,

1. Dr. Sima Samar, Former Chairperson of Afghanistan Impartial Human Rights Fee
2. Shaharzad Akbar, Former Chairperson of Afghanistan Impartial Human Rights Fee
3. Dr. Nasir A.  Andesha, Ambassador, Afghanistan Mission, Geneva,
4. Naseer A. Faiq, Cost d’Affaires, Afghanistan Everlasting Mission to the United Nations, New York
5. Dr. Abbas Farasoo, College of Melbourne, Australia
6. Dr. Ali Karimi, College of Pennsylvania, USA
7. Dr. Arif Sahar, Sheffield College, UK
8. Dr. Dawood Rezai, Authorized Scholar, Canada
9. Dr. Elham Gharji, College of Coimbra, Portugal
10. Dr. Farkhondeh Akbari, Monash College, Australia
11. Dr. Hadi Hosainy, Texas Christian College, USA
12. Dr. Hasan Faryaar, Carleton College, Canada
13. Dr. Humaira Might Rizayee, Hazara rights activist, UK
14. Dr. Kambaiz Rafi, College Faculty London, UK
15. Dr. Mejgan Massoumi, Lecturer & Fellow, Stanford College, USA
16. Dr. Melissa Chiovenda, Zayed College, UAE.
17. Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi, La Trobe College, Australia
18. Dr. Omar Sadr, College of Pittsburgh, USA
19. Dr. Omar Sharifi, American College of Afghanistan/College of Minnesota, USA
20. Dr. QasimWafayezada, Kanazawa College, Japan
21. Dr. Rabia Latif Khan, SOAS College of London, UK
22. Dr. Sardar Hosseini, College of Ottawa, Canada
23. Dr. Timor Sharan, Affiliate Fellow, London College of Economics, UK
24. Harun Najafizada, Journalist, UK
25. Jalil Benish, PhD Candidate, Ryerson College, Canada
26. Jawad Raha, Former Diplomat, USA
27. Kawa Jobran, College Lecturer, Canada
28. Metra Mehran, Fellow, New York College, USA
29. Mohammad Asif Ehsan, Lawyer, USA
30. Mohamad Musa Mahmodi, Fellow, Yale College, USA
31. Munazza Ebtikar, PhD Candidate, Oxford College, UK
32. Musa Zafar, PhD Candidate, Fiji Nationwide College, Fiji
33. Ofran Badakhshani, Chairman of Gilgamesh Basis, Brussels
34. Mentioned Sabir Ibrahimi, Non-resident Fellow, New York College
35. Sameer Bedrud, former diplomat, Canada
36. Sanjar Suhail, Writer and Founder, Hasht-e-Subh  Each day, Afghanistan
37. Sayed Madadi, Reagan-Fascell Fellow, Nationwide Endowment for Democracy, USA
38. Shoaib Rahim, American College of Afghanistan/The New College, New York
39. Tabish Forugh, Democracy Activist and Contributing Editor at Honest Observer, USA
40. Wadood Pedram, Human Rights Activist, Canada
41. Zaki Daryabi, Writer and Founder, Each day Etilaat-e- Roz, Afghanistan
42. Zuhal Salim, Former Diplomat of Afghanistan to the UN, USA.

The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Honest Observer’s editorial coverage.