Police in Sistan and Baluchestan: Action Taken Against Officer Who Assaulted Afghan National

The police in Sistan and Baluchestan announced that action has been taken against an officer who slapped an Afghan truck driver. The police information center released this news following the publication of a video showing a confrontation between a traffic officer and a young Afghan driver on social media. According to the police, 'the offending officer has been temporarily suspended from work and is under inspection for further investigation.' The police information center described the officer's actions as 'illegal' and 'unacceptable,' but also claimed that the Afghan truck driver had offered the officer a 'bribe.' According to the report, the truck driver 'after being asked by the police to provide identification documents, handed over a slip along with 30,000 tomans (three 10,000 toman banknotes) to the officer.' The Sistan and Baluchestan police added that after the bribe was offered, 'the officer intended to take him to the police station and file a case against him, and during a verbal altercation between the two parties, he unfortunately slapped him.' The statements from the Sistan and Baluchestan police come despite the fact that in the video published of the incident, it is unclear whether the driver presented a slip to the police officer. This is not the first time a police officer in Iran has behaved in such a manner towards an Afghan national. Previously, numerous images and videos of humiliating encounters between law enforcement officers and illegal Afghan immigrants in Iran have been published. In December 2014, Iranian media published one such incident, with the website Khabar Online reporting that the 'insulting' behavior of a police officer towards illegal Afghan immigrants who had been arrested was 'so severe' that it 'crushed their dignity in the worst possible way.' This website described the officer's treatment of these individuals as lacking 'humanity' and added that 'the officer in this clip, in addition to insults, sometimes asks everyone to cover their faces with their hands and bow as a sign of respect to him, not just once, but several times.' After a series of insults directed at the Afghan detainees, which included both the elderly and young, 'the officer asks the group to all say they love him, and they all comply.' The report added that 'even if the dignity of these immigrants is not important to you; even if you overlook humanitarian issues... at least to prevent losing face in front of the world and to ensure that others are not aware of the extent of our racism and oppression against the oppressed, appropriate actions should be taken against such behaviors and prevent their recurrence.' According to a report from the Statistical Center of Iran in June 2017 regarding the population of migrants in Iran, Afghan nationals make up the largest group of migrants in Iran, with a population of about 1.6 million. These migrants, who mostly live in the provinces of Tehran, Razavi Khorasan, and Qom, share a common culture and language with the people of Iran and are primarily engaged in hard labor. In recent years, with the expansion of social media, the Iranian middle class has become sensitive to the humiliating treatment of Afghans, the prevention of their children's education in Iranian schools, the refusal to issue identification documents for children of Iranian mothers and Afghan fathers, and the uniform perception of Afghans as 'criminals.' Following the Islamic Republic's support for Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war and the dispatch of a significant number of Afghan Shia residing in Iran as part of the Fatemiyoun Brigade to that country, Ali Khamenei has issued directives to address their status and problems. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, in early April 2016, promised during a meeting with several families of 'defenders of the shrine from the Fatemiyoun Brigade' who had issues regarding residency and education for their children. Previously, there had been numerous unconfirmed reports that members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade were willing to be sent to Syria in exchange for residency cards and even monthly cash payments. In February of last year, Peter Bouckaert, the director of emergency affairs at Human Rights Watch, stated that 'the Iranian government not only offers incentives to Afghan migrants to go to the Syrian war but also forcibly sends some of them.' He said that 'some of these individuals have reported that the Iranian government threatened them with expulsion from Iran if they did not go to Syria.' Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic claims that Afghan Shia members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade voluntarily participate in the Syrian war to protect Shia holy sites from Sunni extremists like the 'Islamic State.' In July 2012, the newspaper Mardomsalari published a letter from an Afghan girl to the people of Iran, which she wrote after leaving Iran. Sara Gol, in this letter, thanked Iran and Iranians, writing: 'There are good and bad people in every nation. Not all Afghans are rapists and criminals. They are not traitors and {...}. For example, my brother and father worked tirelessly for a lifetime, 10 to 12 hours a day, to raise me in your good land and did not step out of line.'