Thank you for that question.
I think we have determined that in the testimony we have sent already, I think in May of this year. We have applied article 2 and article 3 of the convention to the situation of the Hazaras, which claims that genocide is any of the “acts committed” towards “a specific ethnic, racial or religious group” and “committed with the intent to destroy” the group “in whole or in part”.
We should also remember that the whole group should not be destroyed for us to claim that a genocide happened, right? What is important is that there should be an “intent” or conspiracy to commit that sort of crime for there to be a case made for a genocide. I think that if you look at it historically, there are several episodes of violence towards the Hazaras that we can clearly justify calling “genocide”.
I think that the events of 1891 to 1893 are on a par with what happened to the Armenians during the First World War in terms of intensity and scope. Of course, as we know, not all Armenians were killed, but that is one of the most widely established historical cases of genocide. I think the Hazaras, as is commonly believed, lost 62% of their population during those three years alone. Then you have August 1998, in which up to 8,000 Hazaras were killed during a period of about one week.
Then, over the years, you can also see similar things happening and again link them. I think there is plenty of evidence that there is now, as we speak, an intention to destroy the Hazaras “in whole or in part”. I think we can look at all those incidents and put them all together: attacks on maternity wards, attacks on educational centres and attacks on women. Often in many of those schools, there are attacks on young Hazara girls. I think all of this really clearly symbolizes an intent on the part of these groups to commit genocide on the Hazaras.