Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the invitation to appear before this committee.
I would like to start by noting how timely your study is.
For more than a century, the Hazaras have been facing continual and systematic discrimination in their own homeland of Afghanistan. Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Amnesty International has documented several massacres of civilian Hazaras or Shia Hazaras in the Ghazni, Daykundi and Ghor provinces of Afghanistan. After the Taliban returned, the Hazaras faced forced evictions in several provinces of Afghanistan, including Daykundi. No one has been held accountable for these crimes and killings.
For example, in June 2022, Taliban forces, in a night raid, killed six Hazaras. That night, the Taliban attacked the house of former Hazara security officer Mohamad Muradi in Ghor province, which led to the Taliban killing him and three other men in his house. Two of the three other men were also former members of the security forces. In addition, in this attack, two of Muradi's daughters were killed, one of whom was only 12 years old. Muradi's son, who was 17 years old, barely survived the injuries he sustained during the attack. Muradi's stepmother was slightly wounded.
In August 2021, Taliban forces killed 13 Hazaras, 11 of whom were former members of the security forces. They were told to surrender to the Taliban and hand over their weapons. In addition to these 11 former security officers, two others who had no security background were killed by Taliban forces. One of them was a 17-year-old girl. Nine of the 11 members of the security forces were shot dead after they had surrendered to the Taliban. The execution of soldiers who are surrendering is a war crime.
In July 2021, Taliban forces, after taking control of the Malistan district in Ghazni province, massacred nine Hazaras from Mundarakht village. Six of them were shot. Three others were tortured to death, including one who was strangled with his own scarf. At that time, due to the Taliban takeover, the villagers fled from their homes to iloks, their summer grazing lands. Some of those killed were detained and tortured to death upon returning to their village to collect food—as they had little food for 30 families—while others were ambushed, arrested and killed by the Taliban at their check-posts. One of the victims, who had been suffering from depression, was not able to leave the village before the Taliban took over. He was killed in the village.
At the same time, in October 2021, Human Rights Watch reported on the forced eviction of Hazaras or Shia Hazaras from at least five provinces of Afghanistan. The forced evictions that targeted the Hazaras and former government employees were based on ethnicity and political opinion. Those forced evictions were conducted with a few days' notice and no opportunity to present legal documents. According to HRW, 2,800 residents were evicted in September 2021 alone from 15 villages in the Daykundi and Uruzgan provinces.
Despite this tragic situation, the Shia or the Shia Hazaras have also been facing widespread and continued attacks by the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, as well as by other armed groups across the country. Since 2015, Hazaras have been a target at schools, on public transport, at mosques, during prayers, at sport clubs, at hospitals, at wedding ceremonies and during religious rituals. These attacks target civilians in civilian places. In some cases, each of these attacks left over a hundred or more casualties. One example of that is the Kaaj tuition centre, which Ms. Javadi just mentioned. Another is the attack that happened a few days ago, which left dozens of people and worshippers killed or wounded in Baghlan province.
The former government failed to protect the Hazaras against these attacks, and the situation is extremely grim under the Taliban. This includes the fact that the survivors' and victims' families have faced restrictions in accessing hospitals, clinics or their own wounded relatives. The Taliban is also putting restrictions in place on media coverage of such attacks.
With the Taliban back in power, Hazaras have been increasingly marginalized from decision-making processes and representation. The Taliban has replaced some of the former government employees in Hazara-populated areas, such as Bamiyan, Ghor and Daykundi provinces, mainly due to their ethnicity, according to the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. There is no Hazara representation in the Taliban's cabinet.
I'll stop here and would be happy to expand upon this further during the question period.
Thank you.