The Islamic Republic of Iran, in continuation of its inhumane and repressive policies against the impoverished, has now launched a new wave of deportation, arrest, humiliation, and starvation of Afghan migrants. While Afghan migrants have been an inseparable part of Iran’s working class for over forty years, they are now facing systematic violence without any legal rights. These policies are part of a classist and racist suppression project imposed on the downtrodden and the voiceless in Iran. Over all these years, Afghan migrants have worked under the harshest conditions without insurance, housing, education, or even the right to protest in sectors such as construction, agriculture, transportation, and domestic services, contributing to the operation of the Islamic Republic’s decaying economy. Yet, the regime has not only exploited them but is now discarding them like excess waste at the border, a behavior neither consistent with human ethics nor with human rights principles.
According to Kolbarnews, only on Thursday, July 3, 2025, dozens of Afghan migrants and stateless Baloch citizens were transferred to the al-Ghadir camp in Zahedan. The conditions in this camp are extremely inhumane. There is no water, no food, no care, and not even permission for families to offer aid. The only glimmer of hope is the honorable Baloch people who, at the risk of confrontation with security forces, deliver bread and water under the gates to the hungry and thirsty detainees. These scenes reveal the depth of the regime’s atrocities; a regime that cruelly imprisons not only migrants but also its own citizens, like the undocumented Baloch.
Kolbarnews condemns these criminal and inhumane actions by the Islamic Republic and declares its full solidarity with Afghan migrants. We call upon all freedom-seeking and justice-oriented forces including independent labor, women’s, civil, and student organizations not to remain silent in the face of this crime. Today’s indifference legitimizes tomorrow’s oppression. Only through unity among all the oppressed, the laborers, the exiled, the kolbars, the migrants, and the uniquely marginalized ethnic nations can the Islamic fascist regime’s machinery of repression be stopped.
We also call on international organizations, including the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR, to urgently address the situation of Afghan migrants in Iran and prevent the continuation of forced deportations and unlawful detentions.
Silence in the face of this crime is complicity with the Islamic Republic.
Kolbarnews Board of Directors
July 2025
