Abdorrahman Boroumand Center

for Human Rights in Iran

https://www.iranrights.org
Omid, a memorial in defense of human rights in Iran
One Person’s Story

Ehsanollah Ehsani

About

Age: 20
Nationality: Afghanistan
Religion: Islam (Shi'a)
Civil Status: Single

Case

Date of Killing: May 20, 2016
Location of Killing: Yazd Province, Iran
Mode of Killing: Death in custody
Charges: Robbery
Age at time of alleged offense: 20

About this Case

Mr. Ehsani was a 20-year-old Afghan living in Yazd who liked to play soccer

News of Mr. Ehsanollah Ehsani’s death was published by HRANA News Agency on May 22, 2016. Additional information was obtained through Boroumand Foundation research and interviews conducted with persons with knowledge of the case including Mr. Ehsani’s brother.

Mr. Ehsanollah Ehsani, child of Ali Khan, was born on March 21, 1996 in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province, Qarabagh District. He was 20 years old, an Afghanistan national, and of Hazara ethnicity. Due to the lack of security in Afghanistan, he migrated to Iran as a child with his mother, two sisters, and three brothers. Iran shares a 937-kilometer border with Afghanistan as well as a common language with a significant part of the people of that country: for this reason, Iran has absorbed through its borders one of the largest mass movement of populations in the world. Millions of people fled Afghanistan in order to escape war, oppression, and insecurity when Afghanistan was under Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989, as well as during the country’s civil wars, especially after the Taliban’s rise to power in 1996. They took refuge mainly in Iran and Pakistan.*

Prior to his family’s migration to Iran, Mr. Ehsani’s father had been living in the country for years: he had a Basij membership card and had fought on the Iranian side during the Iran-Iraq war. Mr. Ehsani resided in Yazd’s Rahmatabad neighborhood and had a legal residence card and a work permit. Mr. Ehsani came from a large and relatively poor family and had a sixth-grade education, having dropped out of school due to discriminatory and degrading treatment. He subsequently started to work with his father and his brother to help out his family. He worked as a welder and mason and had started a coffee shop with one of his Iranian friends in the last months of his life where he worked in the afternoon. Mr. Ehsani was a quiet and fairly serious person. He loved his mother very much and tried hard to make her happy and comfortable. He did not want to leave Iran because of his mother, but he sometimes thought about leaving and said that he wanted to save money to go to Canada. He liked sports and football (soccer) and played on his neighborhood’s team. He would go to his brother’s home at times to watch football games with his brother’s family.

Mr. Ehsanollah Ehsani’s case is related to theft of a motorcycle and carrying an illegal taser.

Arrest and detention

Mr. Ehsani was arrested by Zarej Police Precinct officers on Friday, May 13, 2016, while he was sitting in a park waiting to join his friend for a football game. The officers realized he had an open case for the theft of a motorcycle while checking to ascertain his identification.

Five months prior to this arrest, several Yazd Criminal Investigations officers had gone to Mr. Ehsani’s home sometime in December 2015 at 9:00 PM in a silver Peugeot 405 automobile. They then arrested him without providing a warrant, handcuffed him, and took him to the Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau located at Azadi Square. The Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau identified Mr. Ehsani riding a motorcycle and carrying another person on his bike through city camera footage.

Mr. Ehsani’s mother and brother went to the Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau after his arrest to follow up on his case. On the second day they went there, they met with him by chance for a few minutes in one of the administrative rooms. Mr. Ehsani told his family that he had been interrogated and tortured to make a confession. Mr. Ehsani’s brother recounted that his brother was in “very bad” shape during that visit and quoted his brother as saying: “They tell me that I have stolen; I have done nothing, I just picked someone up and took him somewhere. He was the thief, he had stolen the motorcycle, and they think I was his accomplice. They torture me without giving me food and water; they want me to admit that I have committed ten crimes and to confess to them so that they’ll stop torturing me. They say they will help me out and will tell the court that I cooperated and that because I’m young, they will ask the court to give me a lighter sentence.” According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, he was extremely hungry, thirsty, and pale when they saw him. His mother wanted to give him a piece of cake she had in her bag but they did not allow him to eat it and said that it was prohibited. Mr. Ehsani’s mother and brother visited with him while he was being taken by four Criminal Investigations officers in a silver Peugeot 405 to identify several robbery locations. In response to Mr. Ehsani’s mother asking where they were taking him, the officers said: “We’re taking him for a drive.”

When he went back on the third day, the Criminal Investigations officers told Mr. Ehsani’s brother that they had transferred him to Yazd Central Prison. During his detention, Mr. Ehsani visited with his family on Sundays from behind a glass window for less than half an hour. He had told his brother during the first such visit: “They beat me until I was near death; I had no other choice but to accept whatever they said.” Mr. Ehsani’s brother explained: “They had told him: ‘You must take the blame for these crimes, otherwise we will continue to beat you to a pulp…No one can help you here. We will just keep beating you, we don’t care.’ My brother would tell me ‘…First they calmly tell you to do this, to do that. Then they tell you so many things that you can’t say anything anymore. And then they beat you. They will beat you even more if you want to say something; they force you to accept it. They scare you.’” Mr. Ehsani had told his brother that when he was riding his motorcycle on the street, a passenger had raised his hand at Abazar Square, and he had given him a ride to the Thursday bazaar without knowing who he was. Based on available information, Mr. Ehsani had bought the motorcycle from an individual to whom he had made partial payment for the bike, with the remainder to be paid upon delivery of the deed of title. Based on available information, that bike and other motorcycles were stolen by the seller, who would then switch the tags and subsequently sell them to unsuspecting buyers.

Mr. Ehsani’s family hired an attorney for him. After following up on the case, the attorney told his family: “The Criminal Investigations people said that there are several other people who have tricked these guys and they’re the ones we’re looking for. You can post a deed of title as bail and release him until we find those other people.” Being Afghan citizens (and therefore not allowed to own real property in Iran as foreigners), Mr. Ehsani’s family did not have a deed of title to put up in lieu of the 120 million-Tuman bail the Court had required. They were able to borrow a deed of title to a property owned by one of their Iranian friends after a month in order to secure their son’s release. After the deed was presented, Mr. Ehsani was transferred to the Foreign Nationals Police, then to a camp in the town of Bafgh for two days, and then released temporarily. From the time he was temporarily released until he was arrested again, Mr. Ehsani was summoned to the Criminal Investigations Bureau twice in order to identify the accused in the case, and returned home within about an hour.

Stating that Mr. Ehsani had admitted under torture to complicity in stealing four motorcycles, his brother remarked on his physical and mental state after the detention: “He had become thin. He wasn’t himself… He was very young and he had gotten scared. My father would ask him: ‘What did you do, and tell the truth.’ He would say: ‘I haven’t done anything, I swear I haven’t done anything. They beat me so much that I had to say something but I would not admit to stealing more than four motorcycles.’”

Based on available information, Mr. Ehsani met with his lawyer twice: once in prison, and another time when he was free on bail. His attorney had told him that because he had confessed, he had to wait until they arrested the thieves. He said that he had talked to the Criminal Investigations officers and they had said that they had to arrest four other people and that Ehsan had cooperated with them. They thought he was their partner because they had seen him ride the bike.

Mr. Ehsani was arrested for the last time by Zarej Police or Criminal Investigations officers on Friday, May 13, 2016, in Yazd’s Zarej Park. According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, quoting the last witness that was with him, Mr. Ehsani and said witness (who was his friend and lived in the same neighborhood) were sitting in Rahmatabad neighborhood when someone called Mr. Ehsani and asked him to go to a park in Zarej, 18 kilometers from Yazd. His friend wanted to go with him but Mr. Ehsani said that he had to go alone. Based on available information, someone called Mr. Ehsani’s home that same day and told his mother that Ehsanollah was dead. They called from that same phone number again, and this time, Mr. Ehsani was on the line and told his family that he had been arrested and was at the Zarej police Precinct, and that the officer who had called earlier had been “joking” with them.

Three days later, on Sunday, Mr. Ehsani told his father in a phone conversation: “Father, please come here; they’re beating me and telling me to admit to these things. They’re beating me so much. I haven’t done anything. Please just come and tell them not to beat me.” Based on available information, through followup and persistence, Mr. Ehsani’s father was able to locate his son at the Prosecutor’s Office. Mr. Ehsani had told his father: “I was sitting in the park waiting for my friend to come so we could go to the football field on the bike when three or four officers asked for my identity card. I showed them my work permit but I didn’t have my residency card with me. They did not accept that from me and proceeded to arrest me. Later at the Precinct, they realized that there was an open case against me and they turned me over to Criminal Investigations.” When his father saw him at the Prosecutor’s Office Mr. Ehsani was handcuffed, shackled, and wearing slippers. His elbow and ankle were injured and it was clear that he had been beaten with something like a cable. Based on available information, Mr. Ehsani’s father had asked the Criminal Investigations officer why they had beaten his son and he had been told: “We have to beat him. We’ll beat you too if you talk too much.”

On Wednesday, an officer had gone to Mr. Ehsani’s home and asked his family whether he suffered from any particular illness and was told that he did not. The officer had then told them that their child was hospitalized at Mehriz’ Fatemeh Zahra Hospital and that they should rush to see him before it was too late. According to a witness, his health had taken a turn for the worse on Tuesday afternoon and the agents had taken him to Yazd’s Shahid Rahnamun Hospital, which was a well-equipped facility, where he had stayed around six hours until about midnight. Then, for some unknown reason, he was taken to Fatemah Zahra Hospital in the town of Mehriz, which is located about an hour from Yazd.

According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, Criminal Investigations officers had taken him there while he was in a coma, where he was hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit. The doctors at Mehriz’ Fatemeh Zahra Hospital had told Mr. Ehsani’s family: “They brought him here all beaten and bloodied. There is a tear in his heart; he has internal bleeding; he has a hemorrhage in his head and his skull is bashed in. Just pray; there is a small chance he might stay alive.”

According to a person with knowledge of the case, quoting Mr. Ehsani’s doctor, his heart and brain had stopped functioning. He was severely hemorrhaging from his nose and mouth, so much that removing the cotton from his nose or mouth would cause the bleeding to continue. His doctor had said that they had given him several packs of blood but that it was of no use. From the time his family was informed, Mr. Ehsani spent one day in the ICU and his family was only able to see him behind the window. They were not even allowed to take his picture: the officers accompanying Mr. Ehsani deleted the only picture his brother had taken on his cell phone.

Mr. Ehsanollah Ehsani passed away on the morning of Thursday, May 19, 2016, at Fatemeh Zahra Hospital in Mehriz.

Trial

No trial was convened for Mr. Ehsani since his case was still in the investigations stage.

Charges

Mr. Ehsani was charged with “complicity in stealing 10 motorcycles”. The officers told his father that the reason for his last arrest was “carrying a taser.”

The validity of the criminal charges brought against this defendant cannot be ascertained in the absence of the basic guarantees of a fair trial.

Evidence of guilt

For the first arrest, the city camera footage on which Mr. Ehsani had been seen in the vicinity of where the theft had occurred was used against him as evidence in the course of investigations conducted by the Criminal Investigations Bureau. No further detail is available on evidence used against Mr. Ehsani.

International human rights organizations have repeatedly condemned the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for its systematic use of severe torture and solitary confinement to obtain confessions from detainees and have questioned the authenticity of confessions obtained under duress. In the case of political detainees, these confessions are, at times, televised. The National Television broadcasts confessions during which prisoners plead guilty to vague and false charges, repent and renounce their political beliefs, and/or implicate others. Human rights organizations have also pointed to the pattern of retracted confessions by those prisoners who are freed.

Defense

Mr. Ehsani denied all the charges to his family and his attorney and said that he had confessed and admitted to participating in the theft of four motorcycles under torture. He never got a chance to defend himself in court.

A Summary of the Legal Defects in the Adjudication of Mr. Ehsanollah Ehsani’s Case

It can be ascertained from the contents of this case that Ehsanollah Ehsani was tortured by police officers. The fact that Mr. Ehsani was tortured and coerced for the purpose of extracting a confession has been thoroughly proven and established, and the Investigating Judge at the Prosecutor’s Office in the town of Mehriz found police officers at fault for beating Ehsanollah Ehsani and causing his death. This judicial official labeled the murder unintentional, however, and the Mehriz Prosecutor agreed with that finding. The Prosecutor’s Office [Investigating Judge’s] ruling, which is in the possession of the Boroumand Center, states that the officers beat the defendant in the course of interrogations and that the Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the existence of injury marks on his body; the Investigating Judge, however, found that the beating was not intentional. This is the biggest error and defect of this case. Pursuant to a general principle of criminal law, a crime takes place when criminal behavior and the criminal act have taken place with intent and purpose on the part of the person who commits the act. If the Investigating Judge has found the defendants in the case guilty of beating and torturing the victim, then it follows that these individuals carried out the beating intentionally; otherwise the Investigating Judge should have found the defendants not guilty. Furthermore, it is impossible to imagine a beating that is unintentional: it is not possible for a person to beat and torture another unintentionally and accidentally. The Investigating Judge has confirmed the same, as mentioned above.

Additionally it is clear based on the order that Ehsanollah’s death was caused by the beating committed by the officers, because the Investigating Judge charged Defendant Number 1, Alireza Ghafuri Bidakhuidi, with manslaughter, citing Islamic Penal Code Article 616. The Article provides: “In the event that manslaughter occurs due to carelessness or a lack of caution, or to commission of an act in which the perpetrator was not skilled, or to lack of observance of laws and regulations, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to imprisonment from one to three years and to payment of Diah if demanded by the next of kin, unless [the act] is purely a mistake.” By way of explanation, manslaughter occurs when a person does not intend to kill another, and the blow is not typically lethal, but the victim dies anyway. In this case, the Investigating Judge believed that the blows perpetrated by the police officer, which were intentional, caused Ehsanollah’s death, but since he did not intend to kill, the killing amounts to manslaughter. Based on available reports, however, including statements made by members of Ehsanollah’s family, police officers took Ehsanollah to the hospital when his condition deteriorated. The victim’s family visited him in the ICU, where he was in a coma and signs of beating and injury could be seen on his body. The blows were so severe that he had lost blood and passed out. The Medical Examiner’s report confirms the existence of wounds and injury marks on his head and body. All of these blows were obviously capable of killing a person and were typically lethal. How can the Investigating Judge believe that the blows were not typically lethal and that the victim died accidentally? How is it possible for an individual to have hemorrhaged severely and gone into a coma, and for the Investigating Judge to consider such blows “not typically lethal”? All of the evidence indicates that the officers who beat Ehsanollah committed intentional murder. It seems that judicial authorities, under the influence of the Criminal Investigations Bureau and taking advantage of the fact that Ehsanollah was not an Iranian national, illegally opened the case based on a manslaughter theory from the start.

Furthermore, regarding the late Ehsanollah’s theft case, it seems that the Criminal Investigations officers did not have enough evidence to charge him with theft, since they tried to get him to admit to the charge and extract a confession through torture. The fact that the stolen motorcycles were not found and identified is further proof of lack of evidence.

Judgment

No trial was ever convened for Mr. Ehsani and no sentence was, therefore, issued.

Government Officials’ Actions and Statements

Based on available information, Information Ministry agents did not allow Mr. Ehsani’s family to take his body to their home and neighborhood prior to burial, as was their custom. Also, according to an eyewitness, three or four motorcycles, each with two riders, as well as five Information Ministry automobiles with plainclothes individuals wearing black and carrying walkie talkies and weapons, were present at the burial but did not take any action; they just watched the services and made sure no one did anything or took any pictures or videos. Furthermore, Mr. Ehsani’s family was not allowed to view his face one last time for fear that someone would take pictures of the torture injuries.

Four Criminal Investigations officers were arrested and charged with Mr. Ehsani’s voluntary manslaughter 

Based on available information, in the course of followup by Mr. Ehsani’s family after his death, the Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau officials told them, “We are in shock ourselves and we don’t know how this could have happened.” They told Mr. Ehsani’s family that their child was detained at Zarej Police Precinct 19. In further followup by the family, the chief of Zarej Police Precinct 19 showed them the Precinct’s closed-circuit camera footage, put his hand on the Qoran and swore by it that their son had left the Precinct “healthy and on his own two feet” and that he did not know where the agents had taken him. Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau officials also showed the family what was said to have been closed circuit camera footage and told them, “Your son left the Criminal Investigations Bureau healthy.”

After Mr. Ehsani’s passing, the town of Mehriz General and Revolutionary Investigative Judge’s Office sent his body to the Coroner’s office for an autopsy and determination of the cause of death. According to available documentation, after an autopsy was conducted, the Coroner’s Office determined the cause of death to be “irreversible shock following a blood clot inside blood vessels and rhabdomyolysis resulting from hyperthermia and damage to soft tissue.” Based on available information, there is also a report issued by Tehran Medical Examiner’s Office in the case file which was not provided to the family’s victim or his attorney.

The Afghanistan Embassy in Tehran wrote a letter to the Islamic Republic f Iran’s judicial authorities asking for a just investigation by relevant Iranian judicial officials into Ehsanollah Ehsani’s murder case while in detention. Noting Mr. Ehsani’s father’s complaint, it stated that “His 20 year-old-son dies while in questioning and due to the severity of the torture he endured in Yazd’s town of Mehriz; the family’s complaint has been referred to Yazd Assistant Prosecutor’s Office Branch Two but so far, not even their attorney has been able to take the case on and obtain any information.”

Only one officer was found guilty of beating the deceased with a ruler and preventing him from getting out of the car by locking the doors and windows 

Based on available information, following the complaint lodged by Mr. Ehsani’s parents, four Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau employees by the names of Hamed Fotuhi Shahabad, Vahid Akbari Raisabadi, Elias Yar, and Alireza Ghafuri Bidkhovidi were introduced as the defendants in the case. The charges brought against them were “voluntary manslaughter and harming Mr. Ehsani in order to extract a confession.” On the charge of “voluntary manslaughter, Mehriz General and Revolutionary Investigative Judge issued an order of non-prosecution for Vahid Akbari, Elias Yar, and Hamed Fotuhi Shahabad and dismissed the charge against them. He also issued an arrest warrant for Vahid Akbari and ordered that the judicial process be continued in his case for another charge, that of “harming the defendant in order to extract a confession” which had resulted in the bruising of the left shin, left ankle, the inside of his left foot, the sole of his left foot, the sole of his right foot, and the outside of his right foot. On the charge of voluntary manslaughter, Yazd General and Revolutionary Investigative Judge only found one of the defendants by the name of Alireza Ghafuri Bidkhovidi guilty and stated that, based on the police report, Mr. Ghafuri “had beaten the deceased with a ruler and prevented him from getting out of the car by locking the doors and windows.” Having determined the charge to have been proven in his opinion, the Judge issued an arrest warrant for Ghafuri on that basis and ordered that the judicial process be continued in his case. Based on available information, no sentence has been issued for these people yet.

The Family’s Objections and Statements

Based on available information, Mr. Ehsani’s parents hired an attorney one day prior to his death while he was still in a coma at the hospital and brought a complaint before the Mehriz Military Tribunal. According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, his family wants to know how, why, and by whom their son was killed. According to a person with knowledge of the case, the Military Court Judge has seen Mr. Ehsani’s body from up close and has confirmed the injuries to his head and face but the Yazd Medical Examiner’s Office has not recorded these injuries and its report differs from the reality the family observed. The judge has said that he cannot record what he has seen in the case file until the Medical Examiner confirms the same.

According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, following his parents’ complaint, “four criminal Investigations officers were arrested, then there were three, then they said only two were accused of having tortured Mr. Ehsani. Now it is not clear where the case stands.” Stating that in the span of only one day they had tortured Mr. Ehsani so extensively at Yazd Criminal Investigations Bureau that he ended up in the hospital, his brother added: “They show videos of my brother at the Criminal Investigations Bureau and say that my brother was not beaten there like that. What about when Criminal Investigations officers were taking my brother to the hospital? How can they say nothing happened at the Criminal Investigations Bureau? Did someone come from the outside and beat my brother to a pulp like that? How is that possible? My brother’s skull was fractured and dented in at the hospital.” According to Mr. Ehsani’s brother, quoting Mehriz’ Fatemeh Zahra Hospital nurses, when Criminal Investigations officers brought him in, his clothes were all bloodied and had nothing else with him. Quoting the family lawyer, he said: “The nurses said that the Criminal Investigations officers had taken him to the nearest hospital first, which was the Farrokhi hospital (Shahid Rahnamum Hospital located on Farrokhi Street) but they had not accepted my brother there. Then they took him to Mehriz, which is about an hour’s drive from Yazd. We must find out why the Farrokhi hospital did not accept him and why they took him to the Mehriz hospital which was far away.”

Ehsani was locked in the trunk of a car for four hours in 111 degree Fahrenheit (44 Centigrade) weather. He was bleeding severely from the nose and mouth when he was brought out 

According to a person with knowledge of the case, Criminal Investigations officers took Mr. Ehsani outside the Criminal Investigations Bureau, severely beat him up, and put him in the trunk of a car where they kept him enclosed for four hours in 111 degree Fahrenheit (44 Centigrade) weather while the car was running. Mr. Ehsani’s condition was so grave that when they got him out of the trunk, he was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth.

Mr. Ehsani’s family has also gone to the office of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran to voice their complaint. An official there has told them to wait for the court’s decision.

Based on available information, Mr. Ehsani’s family has been threatened and told that if they pursue the case, “things will go badly for them and their legal resident status will be taken away from them.” Furthermore, a person connected to one of the defendants in Mr. Ehsani’s murder case who has stated that he is an Information Ministry agent has threatened Mr. Ehsani’s family, telling them, “I know what to do with you.” The family nonetheless continues to pursue the case. Another person has told Mr. Ehsani’s father, “If you don’t withdraw your complaint, I will run your entire family over with a car and destroy them. It’s easy for us; you are Afghan and no one will care or say anything. I will make life very hard for you and I won’t let you have a minute of peace.”

According to an eyewitness, Mr. Ehsani’s family is suffering from depression after this event, and do not leave their house. His mother cries every day and his father does not feel like talking to anyone.

Afghan Migrants in Iran

Iran has long been host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world due to its 937-kilometer border with Afghanistan and the language it shares with a large part of the Afghan population. Millions of Afghans who fled conflict and repression during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation and later civil war, particularly following the Taliban’s 1996 rise to power, sought refuge in Pakistan and Iran.

Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, stressed the necessity of hosting Afghans in 1979. Therefore, Iran gave asylum and some forms of assistance to Afghan refugees from 1979 to 1992. After the Afghan Mojahedin came to power in 1992, however, the Iranian government began encouraging and pressuring Afghans to return to Afghanistan through various measures, including the implementation of onerous procedures for renewing refugee papers, refusal to register newly arriving Afghans as refugees, and denial of public services to refugees. As a result, about a million Afghans returned to their homeland in a short period. This policy has continued up to now despite increasing emigration from Afghanistan caused by dire security conditions in the country since 2008. Authorities arrest undocumented Afghans and detain them in camps assigned for aliens before returning them to their country. Meanwhile, the United Nations has offered financial assistance to the Iranian government in order to support minimum living conditions for refugees and to assist their voluntary return.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that a total of 2.5 million Afghans, including 1.5 million registered refugees and 1 million undocumented, were living in Iran as of November 2015. The latest governmental statistics, published in May of 2015, indicate that about one million Afghans live in Iran legally and somewhere between 1 to 1.5 million illegally. Most of them have lived in Iran for a long time, have married in the country, and have worked difficult jobs such as construction work. Most Afghan refugees live in urban areas or are concentrated in certain provinces such as Khorasan-e Razavi, Tehran, and Esfahan.

Since 2004, Iran has imposed severe restrictions on freedom of movement for Afghans. Their movement is totally forbidden in some provinces, and partially in others. Even though Iran signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, it has imposed some discrimination against Afghan refugees. For example, the Iranian government has made it difficult for many mixed Iranian - Afghan couples to marry, denied citizenship to Afghan husbands of Iranian women, and created barriers to citizenship for the children of such couples. Since 2006, mixed marriages are not officially recognized. Iranian women cannot officially marry Afghan men unless they go through a difficult process.

According to various reports by human rights defenders, instances of discrimination against Afghan migrants include fees charged to children seeking education and various excuses given by school officials to deny their registration. Afghans are restricted to working in specific professions, all of which are menial and many of which are listed as dangerous by the Interior Ministry. They cannot obtain drivers’ licenses nor purchase property in their name. Finally, both documented and undocumented Afghans experience a range of abuses, and many who are deported also face police abuse including violence, theft, unreasonable deportation fees, forced labor during detention prior to deportation, and poor conditions in detention facilities.

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