Photo: Hengaw Legal sources have reported that Sara Gohari, an Afghan sociology student at the University of Tehran, has been transferred to Torbat-e Jam prison after several weeks of detention in a solitary confinement cell at the Mashhad Intelligence Department. Reza Shafahkhah, an Iranian defense attorney, wrote on the social platform X on Sunday, July 27, that Ms. Gohari recently made a call from Torbat-e Jam prison. According to him, Sara Gohari’s legal case is under investigation in the Taybad county prosecutor’s office under the charge of “propaganda against the regime.” Previously, the human rights organization Hengaw had reported that this 29-year-old student was arrested on July 6 by agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence while she was at the Taybad border for field research, and was transferred to an undisclosed location. Sara Gohari had previously written on her Instagram that her purpose in going to the Taybad border was to research the conditions of Afghan migrants, at a time when thousands of Afghan migrants were being deported from Iran daily and many of them had reported violent and abusive treatment by Iranian officials.

Image from Reuters as published by Vijesti The human rights organization Hengaw has reported that a 25-year-old Afghan woman and her three young children have been murdered in Tehran. On Saturday, July 26, the organization announced that the incident occurred about ten days ago in the Mortezagord area of Tehran. According to Hengaw’s report, the young woman was killed with stab wounds, and her three small children were suffocated. It is said that the children were between two and five years old. The woman’s body was found on Friday, ten days after the incident, when local residents contacted the police. Hengaw added that the woman was the second wife of an Afghan man who had recently returned to Afghanistan, and she had been living alone with her children in a rented house. In recent months, concerns have grown over increasing violence against Afghan migrant women in Iran. Previously, the mutilated body of an Afghan girl named Kubra Rezaei was found in Tehran; an incident that sparked widespread reactions.

Social Media Local sources in Nangarhar province have reported that a young woman has committed suicide by gunshot in Ghani Khel district of the province. According to reports, the incident took place on Friday, July 25, in the Ghani Khel district. A local source stated that the woman had been married about eight months ago and ended her life using her husband’s firearm. The cause of the suicide has been reported as “domestic violence.” No details have been provided regarding the identity or age of the woman. Taliban local officials in Nangarhar have not yet commented on the incident. This comes as, following the Taliban’s return to power, cases of suicide among women and girls have increased at an unprecedented rate in several provinces of the country. Most of these incidents are reportedly linked to domestic violence, extreme poverty, and severe restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms.

Photo: AP, published via VOA News Following the suspension of the visa extension process for Afghan refugees, Pakistani police have intensified the arrest and forced deportation operations in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Local sources reported on Saturday, July 26, that in B-17 township of Rawalpindi and various areas of Islamabad, children, women, the elderly, and sick individuals with expired visas are being arrested. It is reported that Pakistan has completely halted the visa extension process for Afghan refugees for more than 20 days, and so far, no official explanation has been provided regarding the resumption of this process. Previously, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior had reduced the visa extension period for Afghan migrants from six months to one month. Refugees have warned that the suspension of this process and the increase in arrests have endangered the lives of thousands of migrants who are under threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan, including journalists, civil activists, and women. Meanwhile, the United Nations has confirmed in a recent report that individuals deported from neighboring countries have been arrested, tortured, and imprisoned by the Taliban upon return to Afghanistan.

Photo: UNAMA – via Twitter (@UN) The Taliban’s Committee for Refugee Affairs in Herat province has announced that over the past month, more than 711,000 Afghan migrants have entered the country through the Islam Qala border. According to Ahmadullah Muttaqi, head of Taliban’s Information and Culture Department in Herat and the media officer of the committee, more than 417,000 of them were forcibly deported and about 294,000 returned voluntarily from Iran to Afghanistan. He stated that the provision of services to migrants, including bread, cash assistance, temporary shelter, transportation, and health services, is “regularly,” and so far, more than 684,000 of these migrants have been transferred to their respective provinces and home regions. The process of distributing residential plots is also underway, and according to him, efforts are being made in cooperation with relevant institutions to provide sustainable housing and further support for the migrants. This comes as the deportation of Afghan migrants from Iran has increased in recent months, especially following the recent conflicts between Iran and Israel. The mass return of migrants is happening at a time when Afghanistan's economic situation has become more fragile than before, and the capacity of domestic institutions to respond to this unprecedented wave of returnees is extremely limited.

This is the story of three Afghan migrant girls who were forcibly deported by the Iranian government and have returned to a land where books and pens have become forbidden objects. A Zan News reporter, during a trip to the Islam Qala border crossing in Herat province, has written the sorrowful account of Afghan girls who were not only deported by the Iranian government but also driven away from their dreams, as follows: In a corner of the camp for newly returned migrants at the Islam Qala border crossing, four members of a family sit together under the blazing sun, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius. Among this family is 17-year-old Maryam, with sleepless eyes filled with tears, reflecting the exhaustion of Iran’s camps, the hurtful words of fellow-speakers, the scorching heat of the migrant camp in Islam Qala, and the dark future on this side of the border. She says: "After the Taliban closed the school doors on us, my family left Mazar-e-Sharif, and together with my father, mother, and two sisters, we illegally crossed the Nimroz border to Tehran. With difficulty, money, and connections, I got into school. Although I had studied up to the 8th grade in Mazar-e-Sharif, they placed me in 6th grade. I studied up to 9th grade, and then the Iranian government also wronged us; they expelled us just because we were Afghan." She pulls a book out from her bag and, pointing toward it, says: “This is the last remnant of my dreams; a dream in which no light remains. I wished to return to Afghanistan after finishing university to serve my people, but once again, my education died young.” A knot of sorrow and despair tightens in Maryam’s throat, leaving her unable to continue speaking. She wipes her tears with the edge of her scarf. After a brief pause, she resumes speaking with a trembling voice: “The Iranian government kicked us out in such a way that I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to my teacher. They took us from our home in the middle of the night and brought us to the camp.” Maryam, Fariba, and Somaya are examples of Afghan girls whose families fled to Iran to escape illiteracy, war, poverty, and Taliban oppression. But now, due to the anti-immigrant policies of the Iranian government, they have been deported and returned to Afghanistan; a place where education is forbidden to them and where nothing awaits but housebound isolation, forced marriage, or silence. Fariba, another deported Afghan girl, is sitting with her family in a corner of the camp, but concern for the future is written all over her face. She says: “No one in the world heard our voices except God, because we are girls and from Afghanistan. We were migrants, and we were mistreated. They called us identity-less. Even in classrooms, the behavior of our teachers was discriminatory. But we endured it to reach somewhere, yet once again, we were forgotten. We were building our future, but now we have to bury those dreams in a grave because we have returned to a country where being a girl or a woman means being punished.” With every word that leaves Fariba’s lips, the sound of a choked-up voice becomes more audible. She says that before migrating, she was a 9th-grade student in Jawzjan province, but after migrating and spending three years in Iran, she was placed in 7th grade and therefore was unable to complete her schooling: “My family fled from here so I could get somewhere, but now I see not only did I not reach anywhere, but my father sold everything we had, and now we have to live on the streets of Jawzjan because we have neither shelter nor a home.” Laila is another deported Afghan girl. While distributing food packages provided by a charity organization, she says she is in the worst mental state: “I have no energy at all. For a week now, I’ve been feeling terribly low. I’m truly exhausted, I hate myself, I hate the Iranian government, because it left us with nothing. What did I even want from Iran? I only wanted to study, but they deported me. I wish I were the only one deported, but thousands of girls and boys like me have been deprived of education. We really thought Iran was a good place, but now we see that it, too, is an enemy of Afghan girls’ education.” With tearful eyes, she continues: “My goal was to become a teacher and return to my country, even to secretly teach girls. But now that I’ve returned to Afghanistan, I feel like I’m not even allowed to hold a pen again. Why? Because I am a girl, and I must either stay at home or be forced into marriage.” In the migrant camp at Islam Qala port in Herat province, like Maryam, Fariba, and Laila, thousands of other girls have returned to the country, having left all their dreams and hopes on the other side of the border, silently weeping for their uncertain future.

Photo: UNAMA – via Twitter (@UN) The Taliban’s Commission for Refugee Affairs has announced that nearly 12,000 Afghan migrants were deported from Iran to Afghanistan in just one day. According to the report from this commission, on Sunday, July 20, a total of 11,972 migrants entered the country through the Islam Qala and Pul-e Abrisham border crossings. On the same day, an additional 638 migrants were either forcibly or voluntarily returned from Pakistan via Spin Boldak and Torkham. Meanwhile, Ahmad Masoumifar, the head of Iran’s Foreign Ministry office in Khorasan Razavi, has stated that the deadline for undocumented Afghan migrants to leave Iran has been extended until September 6. After that date, those who remain in Iran will face residency fines. According to him, the reason for the extension is “the hot weather and lack of infrastructure.” However, several Afghan migrants in Iran have previously stated that Iranian police have, in some cases, torn up their residence documents or passports and deported them despite having legal papers. According to some migrants, police officers responded to the presentation of documents by saying, “These papers are only good for fools.”

Photo: Khwaja Tawfiq Sediqi / AP Following the recent arrests of women and girls in Kabul, the “Human Rights Activists’ Union” has released a statement calling this action by the Taliban an “organized crime” and a “stain of shame on the forehead of this savage and medieval group.” The statement notes that by abducting dozens of young women from streets, shopping centers, public transportation, and even hospitals, the Taliban have once again revealed their “misogynistic, inhumane, and ethnocentric” face. The alliance emphasized that the arrest of women and girls is not only a blatant violation of the religious and cultural values of the Afghan people but also fuels the continuation of war and violence. According to this group, these arrests are not isolated incidents but part of the systematic ideological structure of the Taliban. The statement also said that the continuation of such actions is reminiscent of the crimes previously committed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Another part of the statement reads: “The abduction, torture, and humiliation of women is not merely a domestic issue, but a crime against humanity that requires an immediate global response and action. The Taliban are not only enemies of women, but enemies of humanity.” The alliance warned: “A world that remains silent in the face of these crimes is complicit.” According to the Afghanistan Human Rights Activists’ Alliance, the Taliban not only abduct girls but also threaten the future of a liberal, peaceful, and modern world. This alliance has called on international human rights institutions and women’s rights organizations not to remain silent in the face of what it has described as a “targeted and organized crime against women.” This statement was issued as, in recent days, the Taliban have arrested a number of women and girls in the Shahr-e Naw and Dasht-e Barchi areas of Kabul under the accusation of “improper hijab,” an act that has sparked a wave of protests.

Photo: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP via Getty Images Following the widespread and arbitrary arrests of women and girls in Kabul by the Taliban, the “Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile” has released a statement calling this action a “gross violation of human rights” and “part of a systematic project to eliminate women from public life.” According to the statement, which was sent to Zan News on Monday, July 21, the members of this movement have condemned the new wave of repression and intimidation against Afghan women with “deep concern and outrage” and have called for the “immediate and practical accountability of the international community.” In recent days, the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue has arrested dozens of girls and young women in several districts of Kabul, including “Shahr-e Naw” and “Dasht-e Barchi,” without court orders and in the absence of female officers. The arrests were made in streets, marketplaces, city buses, beauty salons, and even educational centers. Local sources report that the detainees were wearing full Islamic attire. The Afghan Women’s Movement in Exile stated in its declaration that these arrests clearly violate the principles outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly Articles 3, 5, 9, 19, and 20. These actions also contradict the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the United Nations. The statement reads: “Four years after the fall, what is happening in Afghanistan is not just a humanitarian crisis, but a crime against humanity.” This movement has called on the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, and countries supporting human rights to break their “silence” and take concrete and binding action against the Taliban. It is worth noting that the Taliban’s arrests of women and girls under the pretext of “not observing Islamic hijab” have sparked widespread reactions.

Photo: MANİSA EMNİYET MÜDÜRLÜĞÜ / Facebook Turkish media have reported that the body of a 17-year-old Afghan girl has been found in the city of Manisa, in the western part of the country. According to the Turkish newspaper Sözcü, on Saturday (July 19), the body of this girl, identified by the initials H.A., was discovered in her home in the Cumhuriyet district of the city. Her family and close relatives, after several hours of not hearing from her, went to her house and found her lifeless body covered with a blanket. Turkish police have stated that, according to neighbors, she had an argument with her husband the night before her death and her husband is now considered the main suspect in the case. Police operations to arrest him are ongoing. After a preliminary investigation by the prosecutor's office, the girl's body was transferred to the state hospital morgue, and an autopsy is scheduled to determine the exact cause of death. It is worth mentioning that this is the second case of a deceased Afghan woman being found in Turkey in the past week. Previously, the body of a 29-year-old Afghan woman was found with stab wounds in the city of Eskişehir, and her ex-husband was arrested in connection with that case.