Persecution of Hazaras
[18][19][20] Thousands of Hazaras have been forcibly seized from their ancestral lands and homes[21][22][23] and undergo the occupation of pastures by Pashtun nomads and Taliban supporters.
[38] Hazaras are historically the most restrained ethnic group in the state and as a result, they have only experienced slight improvements in their circumstances even with the setup of modern Afghanistan.
"It is difficult to verify this estimate, but the memory of the conquest of the Hazarajat by Abdur Rahman certainly remains vivid among the Hazaras themselves, and it has heavily influenced their relationship with the Afghan state throughout the 20th century.
Notably, after the Second Anglo-Afghan War, Abdur Rahman conducted a campaign of repression in Hazarajat, but it was met with fierce opposition by Hazara tribal leaders.
Subsequently, the Pashtuns garrisoned in Hazarajat, treated the local Hazaras as inferiors, and often committed arbitrary acts of cruelty and brutality against them.
The Hazaras fought with vigor but the attrition they faced due to lack of rations led to their demise at the uprising's epicenter of Oruzgan [citation needed].
Following the Soviet Union's intervention and creation of the Parcham government under Babrak Karmal, Hazara rights improved, and the party's constitution declared all races and ethnicities in Afghanistan as being equal.
At the same time, violent ethnic conflict broke out between Hezb-e Wahdat and the Saudi-backed Wahhabi Ittihad-i Islami militia led by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.
[44] In February 1993, a two-day military operation was conducted by the Islamic State of Afghanistan government and its allied Ittihad-i Islami militia.
Two out of nine Islamic State sub-commanders, Anwar Dangar (later joined the Taliban) and Mullah Izzat, were also reported as leading troops that carried out abuses.
[53]At 10 am on 8 August 1998, the Taliban entered the city and for the next two days drove their pickup trucks "up and down the narrow streets of Mazar-i-Sharif shooting to the left and right and killing everything that moved—shop owners, cart pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys.
[55] In addition, the Taliban were criticized for forbidding anyone from burying the corpses for the first six days (contrary to the injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial) while the remains rotted in the summer heat and were eaten by dogs.
[50] Hazaras were shoved into trailers where they suffocated to death or they died of heat strokes,[57][50] and later, their bodies were dumped into piles in the middle of the desert.
[50] The Taliban randomly shot anti-aircraft weapons at civilians into the middle of the city;[50] causing drivers to swerve out of control and run people over.
[50] Human rights organizations reported that the dead were lying on the streets for weeks before the Taliban allowed their burial due to stench and fear of epidemics.
"[48] Members of Pakistan's ISI claimed that the killings were only committed after trials;[50] however, the Taliban had Pakistani fighters alongside them during their siege of the city.
Since ousting the Taliban in late 2001, billions of dollars have been poured into Afghanistan for several large-scale reconstruction projects that took place in August 2012.
Parts of central Afghanistan, like the unofficial Hazara capital Bamiyan, are among the country's poorest and often lack even basic necessities like water and electricity.
[68] Hazara people held a protest in March 2016[10] against the government's decision to move a proposed power line project out of Bamiyan, seeing it as another form of ethnic discrimination.
[70] In November 2015, Afghan militants claiming loyalty to the Islamic State beheaded seven ethnic Hazara civilians who had been abducted in Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan.
[73][74] On July 23, 2016, two Islamic State suicide bombers blow themselves up during the peaceful protest 'Junbish Roshnaye' in Kabul killing 160 and wounding over 200 people.
[76] 18 people were killed and 54 were injured in July 2016 at Kabul's landmark Sakhi Shrine by a gunman wearing an Afghan National Security Forces uniform.
[81][82][83] On October 25, 2020, a suicide bomber detonated in the street outside of the Kawsare Danish center, an education centre in a heavily Shia Hazara neighborhood in the Pule Khoshk area of Dashte Barchi in western Kabul.
[87] On 8 May 2021, a car bombing, followed by two more improvised explosive device blasts, occurred in front of Sayed al-Shuhada school in Dashte Barchi, leaving at least 90 people dead and 240 injured.
[91] On 4–6 July 2021, Amnesty International reported that the Taliban tortured and killed nine Hazara men in the village of Mundarakht, Malistan District.
[92] Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the Shia Hazara people of Afghanistan have faced escalated violence, systematic discrimination, and exclusion.
[94] In 2022, the Human Rights Watch reported that since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, the ISIS–K has claimed responsibility for 13 attacks against Hazaras and has been linked to at least 3 more, killing and injuring at least 700 people.
[95] Since October 2021, the Taliban is forcibly displacing thousands of Hazara people from their homes in Ghazni, Helmand, Balkh, Daykundi, Uruzgan, and Kandahar.
[100] On 3 July 2022, in the rural areas around Balkhab District, the Taliban committed a series of war crimes against the local Shia Hazara population, those war crimes include the execution of 150 civilians after they were subjected to prolonged torture,[101] playing music and dancing in Shia Mosques, Shia seminaries, and schools before turning them into military bases,[102] killing Hazaras due to their ethnicity,[103] seizing homes and vehicles belonging to Hazara civilians,[104] causing hundreds of families to flee to the mountains and not allowing aid workers to reach them which led to the death of 3 infants.
[137][citation needed] In response, many members and leaders of Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) have been killed in military operations conducted by the Pakistan army and the police.
