The consulate of Iran has remained closed for past few days as result of an attack by angry protestors who were demanding that corpses of their sons and relatives executed in the neighboring country should be handed over to them. According to consulate officials, the closure will continue till due steps taken for its protection, ensuring that such incidents would not be repeated and payment would be made for damages dealt to the building. They are also in view that Afghan guards did not make enough effort to push protestors back and protect the consulate.
The problem lies in incident covered by local media as well as widely circulated among social network users. It was said that several Afghan citizens were executed on drug trafficking, which was indirectly confirmed by Tehran officials too. It is not clear how many Afghans were executed in the neighboring country, but quotes from refugees denote on high number of capital punishment issued on alleged cases of rape, murder and drug trafficking. Particularly, laws on drug trafficking has become much severe as anyone with only 48 grams of drugs would be charged with capital punishment.
According to allegations, tens of Afghan citizens are executed annually without public notice. But number of execution publicized is very high. Seemingly, Tehran officials take it as indisputable right to hang any Afghan refugee who is blamed of drug trafficking, without consideration of Afghanistan's laws. Moreover, Afghan embassy is not engaged in process and there is no transparency in the process of persecution. Meanwhile, due to continuous insecurity and weak political establishment, Afghan government has never raised the issue in the international sphere or in bilateral meetings with Tehran officials.
The thing which can be interpreted as step forward is increasing criticisms made by civil society and human rights activists. The freedom of expression has enabled Afghans and local media to highlight the issue and shed light on how terribly many are hanged secretly or publically while Afghan government is not sufficiently informed whether alleged culprits found the chance to defend themselves in the court; or whether the process of persecution was transparent, and tens of other similar questions.
With continuous neglect of government, civil society and human rights, the activists frequently have tried to voice out their anger. They held several demonstrations alongside the people who were demanding for the corpses of their relatives while emphasizing that they left the country merely for job and were not engaged in trafficking. But the impacts of such movements remain in darkness as the neighboring country does not seem to retreat due to our political and economic weaknesses.