Hazaras' Persecution Worsens: Will the New Government show Leadership by lifting the Suspension on Afghani Asylum Claims?

Abstract

• This paper draws on aspects of Afghanistan's ethnic history and its present crises to challenge the Labor policy of suspending the processing of claims from Afghani asylum seekers. It focuses on Shiite Hazaras from Afghanistan. • Outlining their history since the 1890s, it shows that Amir Rahid Rahman's brutal conquest of the Hazaras established a pattern of ethnic and religious persecution throughout the twentieth century. Targeted as 'infidels', this persecution was fiercely re-ignited by the Taliban through massacres and terror. • In sharp contrast to the Australian government's claim that minority groups might now be safer, Afghanistan's security arguably has worsened since 2009 and a reinvigorated Taliban insurgency is spreading well beyond its southern stronghold. • Hazaras are facing dire threats in Afghanistan's central provinces. Jaghori residents in Ghazni province have been warned of an imminent Taliban takeover, and Oruzgan province recently has seen the Taliban killing of 11 Hazaras, decapitated because of their ethnicity and religion. • In Maidan Wardak province, Hazaras have been killed, homes burnt and thousands currently displaced in violent land disputes with armed Kuchis, Pashtun nomads. Reflecting continued persecution through dispossession, Kuchis claim annual land rights based on decrees issued by Rahid Rahman. The Taliban may be exploiting this dispute to incite attacks against Hazaras. • Legal and constitutional reforms are powerless to provide protection in remote villages as the Karzai government struggles for legitimacy and is plagued by allegations of mass corruption. • Based on pressing evidence, and given the prospect of the Taliban regaining power in local regions either through insurgency or reconciliation with the Karzai government, this paper concludes that Labor's policy is unsustainable and that Hazaras are likely still to fear persecution as defined by the Refugee Convention. • Australia presently faces the prospect of a hung parliament after the weekend's federal election. The party that forms government should respond to the growing security crises faced by Hazaras and promptly resume processing Afghanis' claims in a manner that is now transparently free from political agendas.