Hundreds of thousands of Afghan workers banned from working in Iran

Earlier this year the Iranian regime's authorities announced that thousands of Afghan workers who needed work permits to work in Iran, because they do not have passports, will not be allowed to work from the beginning of the Iranian month of Shahrivar. It is the duty of the Iranian working class to defend its Afghan brothers and sisters, especially as the regime's shrinking oil revenue will make it search for more scapegoats to let it off the hook.

Earlier this year the Iranian regime's authorities announced that thousands of Afghan workers who needed work permits to work in Iran, because they do not have passports, will not be allowed to work from the beginning of the Iranian month of Shahrivar (22 August 2008).

In early November Mohammad-Hossein Salehi Maram, the General Secretary of the Foreign Citizens' Employment [Office] of the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry, said that 310,000 Afghan workers, whose passports have expired, need to renew their passports at the Afghan embassy before they can get work permits. He added that if the Afghan workers cannot resolve their passport problems then it will be difficult for them to get work permits.

The authorities claim that Afghan workers had been given the opportunity to get their documents and identity papers in order during the first six months of the current Iranian year (20 March-21 September 2008). Now that this period has come to an end the regime is putting yet more pressure on Afghan workers.

In mid-October the regime published a list of areas that Afghans and Iraqis are barred from entering. This list, which was tagged on to a notice on registering children's names at schools, includes most border regions and all large towns and cities except Tehran.

Yesterday (19 Nov) Mr Salehi Maram was ratcheting up the pressure on Afghan workers even more, saying that: "The presence of over two million illegal Afghan citizens in Iran's labour market is a crime." He also complained that: "The expulsion of illegal foreign labour power is not our responsibility and the Interior Ministry together and the police have to carry out this duty." The foreign (i.e., Afghan) workers' deportation programme was due to begin on 22 September.

Although with the toppling of the Taleban regime by the United States a large number of Afghans had returned to their country, however, with the continuing lack of security and high unemployment, many are now back in Iran.

Afghans already face systematic discrimination at every step in their dealings with the authorities and bosses. In victimising Afghans for the failures of the historically unbalanced and stunted economy, and the endemic corruption and mismanagement of the past thirty years, the current regime is continuing a long tradition of Iranian governments going back to the Shah and beyond.

It is the duty of the Iranian working class to defend its Afghan brothers and sisters, especially as the regime's shrinking oil revenue will make it search for more scapegoats to let it off the hook.

Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network
20 November 2008