KABUL —
Dozens of
Afghans protested Tuesday against Iranian “cruelties” after videos
appearing to show refugees being beaten circulated widely over the weekend.
اضافة اعلان
Tehran announced the closure until further
notice of its Afghan missions “in order to obtain necessary assurances
guaranteeing total security”, its foreign ministry said.
Iran has hosted millions of
Afghan refugees for decades, but fresh waves have flooded the country since the Taliban
returned to power in August, testing the patience of authorities and ordinary
people.
On Tuesday around 200 Afghans gathered at a
square in central Kabul, carrying posters reading “Iran should stop its
cruelties” and “We want justice”.
Public demonstrations have been banned by the
Taliban, but they allowed it to proceed with armed guards watching.
“The Iranian security forces and even common
people there have been treating us badly these days,” said protester Manzoor
Ahmad Farooqi, recently returned from Iran.”
“When their police see us they pin us to the
ground and beat us.”
Tuesday’s protest came after videos
circulated at the weekend purporting to show Iranian border guards and
civilians beating Afghans, although it was unclear when and where the images
were filmed.
Iranian officials have dismissed the videos
as “baseless and invalid”.
Protests first erupted Monday in Herat, the
western city that serves as a Launchpad for Afghans wanting to cross to Iran —
officially and illegally.
Protesters set fire to an Iranian flag
outside Tehran’s consulate in the city, and smashed CCTV cameras.
A statement on Iran’s foreign ministry
website said the embassy in Kabul had also been targeted.
The statement, issued Tuesday, said the
ministry summoned
Afghanistan’s charge d’affaires in Tehran “to vigorously
protest the attacks on the Iranian embassy in Kabul and the consulate general
in Herat”.
Human trafficking is big business along their
shared 900km border.
The two nations also have the Persian
language in common — known as Farsi in
Iran and Dari in Afghanistan — but a
majority of Afghans are Sunni Muslims compared to their mostly Shiite
neighbors.
Iran has long had testy relations with the
Taliban, who raided
Tehran’s consulate in the northern Afghan city of
Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998 and murdered 10 diplomats and a journalist.
The Taliban said the raid was carried out by a renegade
force acting against orders.
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