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Taliban Resurrection & its Implications for Hazara Community

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Peaceforasia
Taliban Resurrection & its Implications for Hazara Community

On the 30th of August, the Taliban killed 14 men of the Hazara community in Khadir district of Afghanistan’s Daikundi province (Pic 1). Only a month back Taliban tortured and killed nine other Hazara men in the province of Ghazni (Pic 1). Since the political upheaval, the Taliban has been on a killing spree, targeting the ethnic minority groups in deliberated attacks across the region. Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard lamented on the event and said that “The cold-blooded brutality of these killings is a reminder of the Taliban’s past record, and a horrifying indicator of what Taliban rule may bring. Ethnic and religious minorities are at grave risks, along with human rights defenders, journalists, professionals.”

In May 2021, ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan) also targeted the Hazara Shia minority, such as the school bombing in Kabul that killed 68 people. Al-Qaeda and affiliated groups as well have attacked Hazaras on multiple occasions, such as the suicide bombing attack that killed 58 Hazaras in neighboring Pakistan. Hazaras are on every extremist group’s target list since they follow the Shiite school of thought, declared as heresy by the Sunni extremist groups.

Who are Hazaras?

The Hazara community constitutes of roundabout 10% to 20% of the total population of Afghanistan. Presently Hazaras are the third largest ethnic minority, with most following the Shiite school of Islamic ideology. For three consecutive centuries, Hazaras have witnessed a wave of ethnic violence targeted against them. In the 19th century, the Hazara community was the biggest ethnic population of Afghanistan (67%). This was seen as a threat by the then Pashtun Sunni leader Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, who ordered Jihad against Hazaras, which resulted in the massacre of half of the Hazara population. Many since then have either remained under political persecution or have been exiled to Iran and Pakistan. By the end of the 20th century, the Taliban took over from receding Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

They acted brutally towards the Hazaras by passing fatwas, declaring them as apostates of Islam, and as a result, several Hazaras got massacred. Within a month of the ascendance of Taliban 2.0, Hazaras got targeted on multiple occasions. The Hazaras are of a non-Pashtun minority, following Shiite ideology and carrying Central-Asian racial features (Pic 2), making them an easy target for the Taliban that constitutes Sunni Majoritarian-Pashtuns.

To know more: https://peaceforasia.org/taliban-resurrection-its-implications-for-hazara-community/

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