HRW: Afghan refugees in Iran face abuse, forced deportations

Afghan refugees who flee their war-torn country to go to Iran face increasing persecution and forced deportation by Iranian authorities, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Wednesday. The rights group detailed an increase in arrests, detentions, harassment and summary deportation of thousands of Afghans, who are also routinely denied the opportunity to lodge asylum claims. "Iran is deporting thousands of Afghans to a country where the danger is both real and serious," Joe Stork, HRW's deputy Middle East director said. "Iran has an obligation to hear these people's refugee claims rather than sweeping them up and tossing them over the border to Afghanistan," he added. There are more than two million Afghans living in Iran, a mix of economic migrants and those who have fled the country as a result of more than three decades of conflict. HRW said it had evidence that Afghan refugees were facing increasing violations including physical abuse, detention in unsanitary and inhumane conditions, forced labor and forced separation of families. Afghan deportees from Iran told Human Rights Watch that the smallest technical errors, including mistakes during the registration process, can prompt the Iranian authorities to strip Afghans of their refugee status permanently and deport them summarily. The Iranian government has also decreed large swathes of the country to be travel and residency "no-go areas" for non-citizens, the report, entitled "Unwelcome Guests: Iran's violation of Afghan refugees and migrant's rights said. "Iranian forces deport thousands of Afghans summarily, without allowing them the opportunity to prove they have a right to remain in Iran, or to lodge an asylum application," it added. HRW also said that the Iranian government's policies meant many undocumented Afghan children could not go school and migrants recognized as refugees were limited to "dangerous and poorly-paid" manual labor jobs. The report said the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and deteriorating economic and security situation was posing threats to those forcibly returned to the country. After decades of war and poverty, Afghanistan remains the world's leading country of origin for refugees with thousands of Afghan leaving the country each year to seek better lives in other countries, mainly across the border to Pakistan and Iran but also to farther destinations in the West.