Recent executions of Afghan citizens in Iran have sparked protests in several Afghan cities and caused a row within the Afghan Parliament, threatening an international scandal as well as damaging the already fragile trust Afghan citizens have in their own government.

The first and most puzzling problem is the lack of clarity about the number of Afghans actually executed by the Iranian government; parliamentarians from Herat have said that more than 50 bodies have been sent back to the country; national security advisor Rangin Dadfur Spanta however, puts the total number of executions at six.

A delegation of Afghan parliamentarians recently returned from Iran saying that more than 5,000 Afghans were imprisoned in Iranian jails. MP Mawalawi Taj Mohammad, leader of the delegation said that more than 3,000 of these had been sentenced to death.

The row has left many Afghan doubtful of their government’s ability to protect its citizens abroad, and attempts by the Ministry of Information and Culture to muzzle the press have raised suspicions that Kabul’s relations with its neighbor to the west are more important than freedom of expression at home.

Over the past two weeks, demonstrations in Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad have erupted over the issue; Iran and the Afghan government have responded by calling the protesters pawns of Jundullah, a Sunni opposition movement within Iran that has been held responsible for several terrorist acts, including a bombing in Balochistan last October that left more than 40 dead. 

Families of those executed in Iran claim that the government is concealing the true number of deaths; they also say that the Afghan government was not present during the trials and sentencing of its citizens, nor were the Afghan prisoners provided with lawyers or other proper representation.

Most of the executed Afghans were accused of drug trafficking; the overwhelming majority of them were from Herat province, which sits on the border with Iran.

In a peaceful demonstration in Herat in early May, families of those executed asked the Afghan government to intervene to save the prisoners – as many as 3,000 -- who are now on death row in Iran.

Mahtab Gul, 55, held a photograph of her 18-year-old son who was executed in Iran a month ago; weeping, she addressed the gathering of protesters. “My son was a driver; someone put drugs in his car. He was held for 14 months in an Iranian prison, and we were not able to see him even once during this time.

One of the oldest among the protesters, Shab Salaam, also wept as he told about his son, executed in Iran over a year ago. He has still not been able to claim the body.

“Ordinary Afghans who worked in Iran and were caught with small quantities of drugs were executed,” said Rahmani, 27, one of the protesters. “ But I know others, who were arrested with 100 or 200 kilos of heroin. They paid bribes and were released.”

Rahmani called for the government to send a fact-finding mission to Iran to assess the status of prisoners there.

It is almost impossible to determine the exact number of Afghan prisoners executed in Iran; families are sometimes reluctant to speak with the media, and neither the Iranian authorities nor the Afghan government seem to agree with the assessment of Member of
Parliament for Herat, Qazi Nasir Ahmad, who told www.afghanistanvotes.com that nearly 60 bodies had been sent back to Herat from Iran over the past few months.

According to Qazi Ahmad, the parliament was taking measures to extradite the Afghan arrestees back to Afghanistan.

Arbab Zarif, from the Kohsal district of Herat province, said that he had paid 1.5 million Iranian rials (approximately $150) to Iranian border officials to receive his brother-in-law’s body. According to Zarif, his brother-in-law, who was working in Mashhad, was arrested and executed without ever being given the opportunity to speak with a defense attorney.

 “Ordinary Afghans who work in Iran are being accused of drug trafficking and executed,” he added.
The case, which is garnering national and international attention, has made many Afghans angry at the inability of their government to protect its citizens abroad.

“The Afghan government pays no attention to the rights of its citizens,” said Haji Mohammad, a shopkeeper in Herat.

Farid Ahmad, a student at Herat University, calls on the Afghan government to do more to protect its citizens.

“Afghanistan’s consulates should follow the cases of its citizens who are accused of crimes abroad,” he said. “There were no political representatives from Afghanistan present when Iran executed Afghan citizens. How can we believe that the trials were fair and transparent?”

Bakhat Mohammad Bakhatyar, an expert in international law, said that Iran has the right to punish Afghan criminals, but that any legal penalties should be carried out according to the principles of human rights and legal norms.

“The Afghan government is responsible for defending the rights of its citizens who live abroad,” he said.

The protesters claim that detainees were denied access to defense attorneys, and that Afghanistan’s diplomatic representatives were not notified of the executions.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zalmay Rassoul, appeared on national television on May 3 and stated that the Ministry had summoned representatives from the Embassy of Iran and requested that the Iranians provide an exact number of Afghan citizens sentenced to death.

The Ministry of Foreign Affiairs declined to comment on this case to www.afghanistanvotes.com.

But it seems that Iran hasn’t taken the issue of protests very seriously.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, accused the Afghan protesters of being in league with Jundullah. He also accused the Afghan reporters who highlighted the executions, of being unfair.

According to Mehmanparast, the protests against Iran are the work of those who want to destroy relations between the two countries.

“In my opinion, Afghan government should act quickly to calm the situation and neutralize these plots by enemies of our two countries,” he said.

The Ministry of Information and Culture released a statement recently reminding journalists that any “propaganda” that created tension in society and harmed international relations was strictly prohibited.