Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on June 16th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

I call this meeting to order.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience. We'll be going until 3:30 today and we're going to be adjusting our panel to put all the witnesses together.

This is the 33rd meeting of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today our meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are in person in the room, and participating by Zoom.

For those of you who are testifying, you will have five minutes for your opening statements.

For everyone, please wait until I recognize you. Comments and questions are through the chair.

We have interpretation services. At the bottom of your screen, there's a little globe icon. You can flip between English and French or just listen to the floor, which is without interpretation.

We have, as an individual, Ali Karimi, assistant professor at the University of Calgary, by video conference.

From the Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services, by video conference, we have Ibrahim Mohebi, president; and Shamim Ahmadi, settlement manager.

As individuals, we have Melissa Kerr Chiovenda, assistant professor, by video conference, and Mohd Rajabi in person.

Thank you for being here, and thank you again, everyone, for your patience.

We're studying the situation of Hazaras in Afghanistan.

We'll start off with Mr. Mohd Rajabi, please.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Mohd Rajabi, As an Individual]

Thanks for having me here.

I want to say thanks to Canada for their mission in Afghanistan for peacekeeping. I want to say thanks to the Canadian government for helping the refugees of Afghanistan by bringing them to Canada and helping them out.

Also, I appreciate and thank you guys who have accepted me to come here as a witness and speak about the genocide of the Hazara during 1891 and 1892.

At that time, 62% of the Hazara people were killed and wiped out. A mentality was going on at that time in all of the Hazara society in Afghanistan. In Uruzgan province, almost every single person was killed. Abdur Rahman Khan ordered to bring 6,000 Durrani people from the Kandahar district. Then, about 4,000 people from the Ghilzay tribe were brought and resettled in Hazara lands and houses. It was a very tragic situation when it was happening there.

What I'm talking about is mostly based on what my grandmother told me of her eyewitness stories and also from books. There are five different books. I will talk about that later on if somebody wants to know what books there are. There are very well-known history books.

Then, after that, this is what happened during the time of Habibullah Khan and his son. It was slavery time for Hazara people, and about 9,000 women were sold only in Kabul, based on the tax that they paid to the government of Afghanistan at that time. All of those 9,000 women were sold to be slaves. This was only in Kabul, and then this could have been for other big cities in Afghanistan, anywhere in Afghanistan.

The raping, killing and atrocities against Hazara people kept going on until the son of Habibullah Khan died in 1919. From 1891 to 1919, there was no life for Hazara people living in Afghanistan. That caused lots of people to move from Afghanistan to escape the killings to Quetta in Pakistan, and they created another town in Pakistan. Mashhad in Iran is a place where lots of Hazara lived. They all escaped at that time from Afghanistan.

There are lots of atrocities to talk about. Each one of the atrocities is really unbelievable. It's unbelievable that a person could do that to another person.

After that, there was a little bit of a break during Amanullah Khan's reign. He introduced a constitution that everybody should be equal. Hazara people supported him during the civil war. Anyway, he escaped from Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, at a school, a young guy named Abdul Khaliq killed Nadir Khan. Once he killed Nadir Khan, his tribe dominated Afghanistan for another 30 years. Afghanistan then marginalized and discriminated against the Hazara. The discrimination happened all the way up to 1964.

Then, again, there was another break. The people had schools and hospitals open during the mission of NATO in Afghanistan. There was a green light that popped out, but it didn't last too long. The people were jealous because Hazara were very talented people. The kids started going to school, showing up and were in offices. Before, they were not allowed to be anywhere in those kinds of places.

They started suicide bombing inside the gatherings of Hazara society, anywhere from the mosques to the schools and hospitals. They also bombed in the road. When the people were travelling from one place to another, they were taken off and searched if they were Hazara. They were killing those people.

In 1992, during the civil war, there was another attack on Hazara people during the civil war between different warlords. The punishment got to the Hazara people, in a place called Afshar in Kabul. The government and its allied party attacked at that time. It was 1992. I do believe it was February 11-12 of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Mr. Rajabi.

I am certain you will be able to share more during the questions and answers. We're going to have ample time for that.

Now we're going to continue on to the Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services.

You have five minutes. I encourage you to time yourselves, but I will lean in when your five minutes is concluding.

Thank you.

[Ibrahim Mohebi, President, Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services]

On behalf of the Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services, I would like to thank everyone who made this event possible to raise the voices of millions of Hazara victims who have perished and the thousands who continue to suffer systemic persecution.

Mr. Chair, I'm a witness and survivor of the unspoken August 1998 Hazara genocide. This is my personal history. I'm hoping this can be a learning experience for our future generations.

In the afternoon of July 31, 1998, my fiancée and I, along with family and friends, were celebrating our engagement ceremony in the Arezo banquet hall in Mazar-e-Sharif. Midway through our ceremony, only a few family members were left in the banquet hall. I asked my brother why the guests were leaving so early. He replied that the Taliban had taken over the city of Sheberghan, which is 75 miles west of Mazar-e-Sharif. The ceremony ended without the traditional rituals.

A week later, the Taliban invaded the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, shooting on the Hazara people in the streets, farms and alleys, killing thousands just because they were Hazara. They started searching houses for Hazaras. The Taliban knocked on my door. I didn't open it. I heard someone say that nobody is in this house. The Taliban went to my next-door neighbour. Each time they knocked on my door, I jumped over the fence to the next-door neighbour. Finally, my neighbour forced me to leave their house. I headed toward my uncle's house, which was in a rural area of the city. On my way, I saw hundreds of mutilated dead bodies of Hazaras on the roads and alleys.

I was working as a medical officer for a leprosy control organization and also as a medical doctor at the city hospital. Eventually, I made my way towards my workplace—the city hospital. I saw trucks with cargo containers full of Hazara people. I witnessed the Taliban's brutal act when they dragged a Hazara patient to the back of their pickup while the serum bag was still connected to his veins.

Mr. Chair, I can talk for hours on end about all the bloodshed that I witnessed or about the indifference of non-Hazara civilians, who were throwing stones at Hazaras to prove their loyalty and allegiance to the Taliban.

Why is it important to recognize the Hazara genocide of 1891-93? It's because the perpetual persecution and systemic discrimination that the Hazara have endured is the after-effect of the 1891-93 genocide committed by the dictator Abdur Rahman. The Hazara have been considered secondary citizens and have been refugees in their own homeland. They have been targeted in their mosques, gyms, schools, markets and on roads and highways.

The recognition of the 1891-93 Hazara genocide won't revive those who were brutally slaughtered, but it will help to change the social and psychological view and belief towards the Hazara. The recognition of the Hazara genocide will not heal our grandparents' wounds, but it will ensure our grandchildren feel valued and can live with dignity.

We humbly request that this committee—and through it, the Canadian Parliament—formally recognize the 1891-93 ethnic cleansing perpetrated against the Hazara as a genocide and designate September 25 as Hazara genocide memorial day.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you for that statement.

We'll go to your colleague for the remaining time of a minute and a half, please.

[Shamim Ahmadi, Settlement Manager, Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services]

Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, today I'm very grateful for your time and the opportunity to share my untold experiences as a survivor of many systemic attacks on my people.

One day around noon while I was in my classroom in Pakistan, the air darkened and the city was overtaken by an eerie silence. My school announced there was an attack on Hazaras in mosque. My heart was shaken and shattered. I was praying that the school would let us go home and praying to find my family alive.

When I got home, my mother was crying and my father wasn't home. We found out that two of our relatives died in that mosque attack. I ran to the street. Our neighbours were crying. One was slapping her face upon learning her husband had perished, too. I decided to go to find my two little brothers. I ran to the hospital where injured Hazaras were taken. I searched every bed to find my brothers, but couldn't find anyone. I was lost among the mutilated, bloody bodies. Every single innocent and lifeless face I saw that day remains with me until this day.

The attacks on Hazaras continued in many places—at schools, on school buses, in the streets and at workplaces. The darkness and hopelessness remained in place in that city. My only question was, “What is our crime?”

Mr. Chair, I returned to Afghanistan in 2011 as an adult, where I experienced renewed mistreatment as a second-class citizen within my own homeland.

There, as a student at the faculty of science, one day during the finals, the guard entered the classroom and started violently beating Hazara students with the point of a Kalashnikov for cheating. Hazara boys in my class begged to have their pockets searched, but the guards wouldn't listen. I was sweating. My paper got wet and other students were falling from their chairs out of fear.

The systemic attacks on my people and the profoundly traumatic impacts on my generation have deeply wounded my soul, those of our grandparents and many generations since the late 1800s genocide.

Mr. Chair, my question was never answered by anyone. What is our crime, to be perpetually condemned to such pain and suffering? I hope this committee does not leave our people's request unanswered—the Hazaras who are looking at us to end this suffering, inherited and passed on from generation to generation. Our future generations deserve to live a life free of persecution.

Mr. Chair and honourable committee members, your decision to respond positively to the ask of Hazara Canadians for the recognition of our genocide is truly the only first step towards closure and healing.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Ahmadi.

We're now going to continue with Mr. Karimi for five minutes, please.

[Dr. Ali Karimi, Assistant Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good afternoon. [Technical difficulty—Editor]

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Mr. Karimi, we're having challenges with interpretation. Your connection is a little bit weak.

We'll let IT work with Mr. Karimi to fix that. I'm going to go now to Ms. Kerr Chiovenda.

You have five minutes, please.

[Melissa Kerr Chiovenda, Assistant Professor, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to talk a little bit about and reiterate the devastation that the 1891-93 campaigns by Abdur Rahman had on the Hazara society in Afghanistan. My research in Afghanistan, which I've undertaken since 2009, focused on Hazara collective trauma and the Hazara community at large.

One of the things I found was that at the centre of this collective trauma was this event in 1891-93 and the actions of Abdur Rahman. While there had been loss of Hazara land prior to that, and while of course we've heard about many of the horrific things that have happened to Hazaras since then, this event set the stage for more than 100 years of Hazara persecution within Afghan society.

Really quickly, Abdur Rahman did carry out campaigns against other communities in Afghanistan, but what was particular about the Hazara community was that it was done with an intent to target a specific ethnic group that had specific somatic or racial features and that was a religious minority. There was dehumanizing language, and there were efforts to mobilize not just the army but the entire society. There were civilians who were brought in and were called upon to commit jihad against Hazaras and target them specifically, so this was a very specific event. It targeted the Hazara culture, as well, and the social structure was almost completely destroyed.

I don't want to take too much time, but I want to reiterate several things that point to this being a genocide. Number one, this was a specific group. This was the targeting of a specific group, an ethnic and religious group. There is documentation of this. We see, of course, the killing of huge numbers of Hazaras, the displacement of huge numbers of Hazaras from their land and the enslavement. I think we've already heard the number, more than 62%. This is pretty much the agreed-upon number.

We also saw, however, that there were conditions put in place to bring about the destruction of Hazaras after this. We had Hazara land that was given out to those who assisted in these campaigns and to others, as well, so Hazaras were removed from the land and it was given to other populations in Afghanistan.

We had incredibly high taxation rates put on Hazaras that made it nearly impossible for them to live, and of course we had the enslavement of huge numbers of people. This was also treated as the spoils of war for those who took part in the campaign.

I think it's important to underline that women—this has been brought up—were forced into marriage and raped, both enslaved women and non-enslaved women, so this could also be viewed in the context of genocide as an attempt to prevent the birth of Hazaras. Again, all of this, these events from 1891 to 1893, has set the stage and has led to current Hazara vulnerability and the current risk that Hazaras face of genocide again in Afghanistan. We have the past history of that, and then we have that going forward.

I think it's very important that this time period of 1891 to 1893 and Abdur Rahman's campaigns against Hazaras be recognized as a genocide for all of these reasons.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Kerr Chiovenda, for that testimony.

We're going to try again with Mr. Karimi for five minutes.

[Dr. Ali Karimi]

How about if I turn off my camera and only talk on audio?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

We prefer that you keep your camera on. It's important for interpretation.

Just go ahead, and it there are any challenges, I'll let you know.

[Dr. Ali Karimi]

Okay.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm honoured to be speaking with you about the social and historical aspects of the violence against the Hazara people.

Wars, ethnic cleansing, enslavement and land grabs leave lasting legacies. In Afghanistan, the Hazaras have been the victims of all these forms of violence throughout the modern history of the country. That is why one cannot fully understand their current situation without paying attention to the historical roots of the Afghan ethnic conflicts.

Despite all their suffering, the Afghan state or even people rarely acknowledge what the Hazaras have gone through. In school books and other instruments of propagating official narratives, the Hazaras are either absent or misrepresented.

Allow me to give you one example of this systematic silence.

The Hazaras were enslaved in Afghanistan for centuries for being Shia Muslims, and were sold in bazaars across the region. This inhuman practice continued well into the 20th century. In 1924, finally the state abolished slavery. Despite its long history, there is no book or even an article in any language about the history of the Hazara slavery. When I say the Hazaras have rarely seen other people acknowledge their suffering, I'm not exaggerating. This is why I especially appreciate the work this subcommittee is doing about the human rights of the Hazara people. This means a great deal to us.

Afghanistan is a very diverse country, with many ethnic groups, languages and sects. In the west, this is not very well known. These diverse people, as you can imagine, were not always very good at getting along with each other. Until the late 19th century, each region of the country had its own states, with kings and mirs. The weaker ones paid tribute to the stronger ones, and that's how they coexisted for centuries. This was, in fact, how political power was practised, not only in central Asia but all over the world, before the invention of the modern state in the 19th century, which introduced novel concepts such as national borders and citizenship.

In the 19th century, the British Empire invaded Afghanistan for the second time. They were worried about the Russian Empire conquering the territory, which was long a buffer zone between the two adversaries. The occupation didn't go well, and they decided to withdraw their troops and instead help a local ruler conquer the confederation of all independent states and make one central state out of them. They picked Abdur Rahman, an Afghan, for the job, and supported him with money and arms.

The new amir was the head of a state that barely existed. In 1892, he declared the Hazaras non-believers and asked the clergy to issue a fatwa of jihad against them. They did. The fatwa said that every Muslim should kill Hazaras, take their property and enslave their men and women. The amir reserved Hazara land for his fellow Pashtuns only.

This large-scale military mobilization united the diverse ethnic groups behind one cause and solidified the position of the amir as a national leader. I would argue that the genocide of the Hazaras gave birth to Afghanistan as a nation-state. This event is the original story of Afghanistan.

The ongoing targeted attacks on Hazaras are a continuation of that larger history of racial, ethnic and religious war on these people. At least two legal scholars, Mehdi Hakimi and Gregory Stanton, have argued that the targeted attacks on Hazaras in the past two decades meet the definition of the crime of genocide. This is not hard to understand. The UN figures show that between 2017 and 2021, extremist groups attacked Hazara civilian targets 67 times, resulting in 2,458 civilian casualties—756 killed and 1,702 injured. This happened only in four years. They targeted Hazara schools, hospitals, mosques and peaceful demonstrations. Hazaras are not safe anywhere in Afghanistan.

In conclusion, allow me to acknowledge that Afghanistan under the Taliban rule is a no man's land. The Taliban have built a state of terror. In particular, they have denied women all their basic rights. The gender aspect of the current human rights violations in Afghanistan is fairly known—the ethnic aspect, however, not so much. Almost everyone is suffering in Afghanistan, but it is only the Hazaras who are being targeted for their race and ethnicity. This is an important distinction that requires acknowledgement by those involved in the affairs of Afghanistan, such as UN agencies, organizations and diplomatic missions.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Mr. Karimi.

Now, we're going to go on with our questions from members of different parties, starting with Mr. Viersen from the Conservative Party for seven minutes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our honourable witnesses for being here.

Mr. Rajabi, I'm going to start with you.

Could you explain a little bit more about the recent history of the Hazara people, say in the last 10 years? How has that looked from 2001 onward, and then in the last year and a half, essentially?

[Mohd Rajabi]

After the last 10 years.... I'll start from the very beginning. In 2022, there were many explosions and one of them was very tragic. All of them were tragic, but I can mention the three most evident right now.

A gunman came to the door of a school, killed the security guy at the door and then entered the classroom. He began shooting around every single student there between the ages of 15 and 19, kids preparing for the Kankor exam to go to university. After he shot them, he exploded himself inside. They basically blamed the ISIS-K of Afghanistan for that event.

After that, there was another event, where they attacked a women's hospital and killed newborn babies. They killed the women doing the deliveries and then killed all the other women right there at that event also.

There was another one at a girls' school. They were preparing for the Kankor exam again. There was another explosion that happened inside and killed all the girls who wanted to go to university and who had lots of hope for the future.

The situation for Hazara people has never been safe in Afghanistan.

As I just mentioned a few minutes ago, anywhere they started popping out and being educated people.... Before, they didn't want Hazara to be sitting beside the other people right there at the office, but now they have popped out to go as educated persons, to be a minister, a general or a high-ranking officer. That was not accepted by what they call terrorist groups, so they started exploding themselves, killing themselves anywhere, on the road, on the highway, in the mosque, in the school, at the university.

There's a lot of evidence that a lot has happened. There is a register by the people of Afghanistan, by historians, that we can bring up.

Thank you.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you.

Melissa, you mentioned you were there in 2011. I imagine there's been a significant shift in the last couple of years, but 2011 was a time of relative peace in Afghanistan. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

[Melissa Kerr Chiovenda]

Yes, I was there. The bulk of my research was done in 2012 and 2013, but I started going in 2009. Yes, it was relatively peaceful when I was there, but there has been a steady decrease in security for Hazaras over that time, which Mr. Rajabi touched on.

We had probably the first really big mosque bombing targeting Hazaras in 2011, I believe. For a few years, it seemed as though maybe that was an isolated incident, but there was concurrently an increase in targeted attacks of Hazaras, particularly travelling by road between cities and between districts. So when people were in urban centres, they might be relatively safe, but when travelling through areas particularly where the Taliban had more control, they could potentially be removed from the transportation, whether it was private or public transportation, and, if they were identified as Hazaras, kidnapped and often killed, including children. There were a number of children. One very famous incident included a nine-year-old girl.

So this started ticking up. Then, I think around 2016, we saw a really big uptick in mass killings, suicide bombings and other types of bombings and, in some cases, shootings and attacks not limited to mosques but involving—and Mr. Rajabi got into this as well—civilian targets, soft targets like schools and educational centres, sports centres and the maternity hospital, which, I would like to emphasize, had an incredibly symbolic significance if we're talking about genocide and if we think about killing mothers who were in the act of giving birth and newborn babies being shot and killed face to face. It's quite incredible to think of and, I think, can really make us see what the intent of those carrying out those attacks was.

So there was just a steady increase from then, really, until the Taliban took control. With the Taliban in control, we had a moment of instability. Now there's a different type of danger, I think. A number of large-scale attacks have happened, but I think more important is the fact that everything has been turned on its head.

We've heard the testimony about what has happened in Mazar-e-Sharif. People who very clearly want to exterminate Hazaras now hold the reins of power. For the most part, they haven't acted yet, and they're just placing blame for the attacks that have happened on ISIS and on other groups.

We also see an erosion of Hazara security in other areas, with people being removed from land that was historically theirs, displaced in rural areas and also in cities, and old disputes that date back decades—sometimes even a hundred years—concerning Hazara land that was given out, even back in the 1800s, to other ethnic groups, which Hazaras later managed to reclaim and which is now being taken back by those groups.

The Taliban almost always falls on the side of the group that is not Hazaras, and of course there's no Hazara representation in the Taliban government to capture this.

Yes, the situation is getting quite bad.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you for that.

We're going to continue on to our next questioner, Ms. Vandenbeld from the Liberal Party, for seven minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your very honest and personal testimony. I know that's not easy to do. I can assure you that it is making a difference and you are being heard.

I know that many of you have talked about the historic situation and the genocide that has happened to the Hazaras in previous centuries, and I understand that acknowledgement of this is something that could be a deterrent in terms of this happening again. This committee has often ended up having to do hearings after genocides have happened. I think that right now we are in a situation where we are perhaps seeing the beginning of another genocide and, perhaps, as legislators, people with power, we may be able to do something to stop it, so this is incredibly important testimony.

I would like to focus on what's happening right now, today.

Mr. Karimi, you mentioned—and I think Ms. Kerr Chiovenda also talked about it—what is happening right now under the Taliban, what happens when the people who are perpetrating the violence are now in power. If I could start with you, Mr. Karimi, you said that in the last decade, say, there have been hundreds killed and thousands injured already. If you could, talk a bit about the current situation today and in the last few years and what your fears are in terms of where this is heading, and then tell us what we can do as legislators to try to make sure this does not happen.

[Dr. Ali Karimi]

I think one way to understand the current situation of the Hazaras under the Taliban is to see how, in the South Asian region in general, Islamic extremism operates. The hatred towards religious minorities such as the Shias, Ahmadis, Hindus and other minorities who live in Afghanistan and Pakistan is one of the main driving forces for recruitment of these extremist groups. You can't go around saying to another Sunni, “Oh, let's join our group and kill our fellow Sunnis.” It's not going to work.

All these madrasas in Afghanistan and Pakistan are recruiting people. They say that there is a jihad going on, that there are non-Muslims like the Hazaras, and that if you kill them, you will go to heaven. You will go to paradise. A lot of these young suicidal men join the Taliban and ISIS because of that.

Right now, the Taliban is acting like a state, and several countries treat them like a state, but what kind of state is it? They have a regiment of suicidal attackers in their army. Any normal army would not have a suicide squad, but they do. In one of the groups, there are 1,500 men ready to commit suicide. These are not states. These are not governments. These are terror organizations, and they operate like terror organizations.

One way they operate, one way they recruit people and fundraise, is through propagating hate. In Pakistan, if you walk into any bookstore, you can pick up books about why Shias are non-Muslim rafidi. In these madrasa schools, there are textbooks that test students on this kind of hate. There is a systemic hatred against religious minorities, and the Hazaras—

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Karimi, I'm really sorry, but I also want to hear from some of the other witnesses, and I have only about a minute and a half left.

Ms. Ahmadi, you haven't said very much, so perhaps I could have you answer that and, if there's time, Ms. Kerr Chiovenda as well.

[Shamim Ahmadi]

Currently, the situation of Hazaras is really critical in Afghanistan, especially with the extremist group of the Taliban coming to power. I'm extremely worried about the Hazaras right now, at the moment, especially women and young women.

Before, even when there was a government that was supported through the international community, Hazaras were not safe to travel between the smaller cities. They were targeted everywhere. Now that the extremist Taliban is in power, we are more at risk of another genocide.

Even when I was in Kabul University, I experienced so many challenges in my time there as a Hazara. Even people at the university were telling me, “Hide your identity, because your eyebrows are a little bit darker.” But how could I hide my facial features? How could I hide my accent and the way I was speaking? I was brought up that way in my family. It was hurting me deeply.

I also witnessed that in the Hazara students' paperwork from the professors at the university, who said that this student was not present at the university during the exam. How could they do that? They were students.

There are so many stories that I can tell you as a person, as an individual, as a Hazara.

I know that this is not my story, and there have been thousands who can tell you. This situation really worries me, under the Taliban government. What will happen to our women, to our young generation, going around and living in that city under the extremists in power? What will happen to our men who work outside? We're very easily recognizable by our facial features.

We have witnessed many attacks in the past 10 years during what we are calling the most stable time in Afghanistan. I'm really worried, and I hope that the committee today hears us and does something for us because the wound and the suffering are unbearable for us. Even being in Canada, we are in between. We are suffering.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sameer Zuberi]

Thank you, Ms. Ahmadi.