By IHRV
The Immigration Office for Foreign Aliens in the Ministry of State announced that both Iraqi and Afghan residents will not be allowed to participate in the country-wide university entrance examinations.  The instruction book issued for the examinations also makes a note that that legal Afghan and Iraqi residents will not be allowed to participate in the entrance examinations in the government-run universities.  This is the plan that has been designed by the Ministry of State to force the return of the foreign aliens to their native countries.  Previously, other limitations had also been devised to limit the registration of foreign aliens and their children in the Iranian schools, by which foreign children could attend schools only after paying registration fees to the Ministry of Education.  The fees were often beyond the means of many families and many children were denied attendance.

In the previous years, the foreign aliens residing in Iran and holding proper identifications for residency were allowed to participate in the entrance examinations for government-run universities.  The valid and acceptable documents included immigrant an booklet issued by security forces (the Immigration and Foreign Alien Police), a passport valid for six months, a special foreign aliens identification card and an exit visa paper, and these allowed a candidate to take part in the examinations.  Nevertheless, the registration of foreign students in fields that carried an employment agreement with the government were restricted, although registration in these types of fields carried no limitations.

Carlos Zaccagnini, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), criticized the decision by the Iranian government and demanded its repeal.  Mr. Zaccagnini said: “Refugees in Iran are entitled to education until high school, and many of them have even completed their higher education in Iran, which is commendable.  However, issuing such an order by a country that has always shown its compliance with refugees’ educational rights is improper, since it closes the doors of opportunity to the growth of refugee students.  We are trying to open the doors of opportunity for higher education for refugees, since educated refugees tend to return to their country more easily.  We hope to see the cancellation of this order in the near future”.

As the restriction order for the registration of Afghan and Iraqi refugees in the entrance examinations was issued, more than 250 Iranian civil rights activists issued their own statement protesting government’s decision and calling it against human rights accords.  The activists in their statement said that such actions by the government have sometimes been mislabeled with excuses such as: “allocating internal resources to Iranians” or, “giving priority to Iranians in the use of national resources”.  The statement said, “We do not essentially recognize these excuses, and we believe denying the rights of refugees is part of a larger policy to divide the people into the groups of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to reduce ‘them’ to a minimal state.  Obvious discriminations in regards to women, labor activists, political opposition, ethnic and religious minorities, Bahaeis in particular, and others who happen to be ‘Iranians’, ‘citizens’ and ‘nationals’, uncover the true politics behind such actions, and national discrimination is just one such ill-intended moves.”

The statement also said that refugees’ rights to education, medical care, jobs and access to other facilities are not something that the Iranian government provides out of the goodness of their heart, but rather is part of government’s mandate.

Also, in another statement in regard to the speeding up of deportation of Afghans from Iran, the statement said: “Explaining the policy by pointing out that an Afghan labor force denies work opportunities to unemployed Iranians is not acceptable.  The evidence of class groupings and the education levels of unemployed Iranians shows that these jobs are unrelated to the types of jobs occupied by refugees, and other evidence extrapolated from macroeconomics policies shows the instability of such an explanation – it must also be said that, even if such reasoning is correct, the devised solution is not a humane one”.

Historic Path of Afghans’ Migration to Iran

The discussion of migration from a homeland to a foreign land is a historic discussion, as old as the history of mankind.

Migrations are often classified into three main groupings:

Group 1- Voluntary migration, where one, in order to achieve better opportunities or to leave behind the current setting, decides to move to another location.

Group 2- Involuntary migration, during war or famine, forcing the residents in an area to migrate – examples of such migrations were often seen during the Taliban years in Afghanistan, or under the situation that presently exists in Iraq.

Group 3- Migration by force, in which people, against their will, are forced to leave their homeland and to settle in other parts of the world.

Overall, Afghan refugees in three historical times have decided to settle in Iran, the last of which occurred during the rise and rule of the Taliban and the imposition of harsh restrictions in Afghanistan.  In the midst of this political turmoil, a multi-year famine also forced a large wave of Afghan migrations toward the Iranian border, which this time included not only the Hazara tribes, but other tribal groups as well. According to Shirzad Abdullahi, an expert with the Ministry of Education: “During the internal and external wars in Afghanistan, the middle and educated classes migrated to Europe and the Americas; however the lower classes, devoid of any specialty, migrated to Iran, and as such their reeducation was very difficult and, after 30 years of their presence in Iran, we do not have an accurate statistics on their population”.

These immigrants have already settled in Iran, and have already prepared themselves for a long-term stay in Iran. They face many difficulties in returning to and resettling in their own country.  Other difficulties have increased in recent years, and they include:

• Lack of subsidized education for aliens with proper residency documents and lack of educational opportunity for those without legal residency documents;

• Not accepting Afghan candidates in universities and pre-university training classes;
• Not accepting Afghan candidates in residency and professional training;
• Refusing to issue a professional license for Afghan residents who have been trained in independent centers;
• Payment of large fees as required by the municipalities;
• Payment of large fees for a work permit, in both specialized and menial jobs;
• Afghan citizens are not eligible for insurance services;
• Refusing to issue health permits for Afghan citizens, so that they can not be employed in job requiring such permits;
• Refusing to issue engineering licenses for a small group of Afghans who have succeeded in obtaining a professional degree;
• Refusing to issue medical practice license for those citizens who managed to complete medical school;

• Refusing to make financial restitution by insurance agencies for Afghan citizens who have been injured or died as a result of traffic- or work-related accidents;

• Refusing to conduct transplants for Afghan citizens;
• Illegalizing marriage between an Afghan men and Iranian women.

Intermarriage of Afghan Men with Iranian Women

One of the difficulties facing the Iranian community in recent years has been the birth of children whose fathers are Afghans and mothers are Iranian.  Since Iranian laws decrees that citizenship can only be transferred from a father to his child, these children born through intermarriage are devoid of birth certificates and other identification documents and, as such, they are denied equal participation in society.  The issue has led to many protests by women’s rights activists in recent years.  The activists believe the laws needs to be reviewed and, in the cases of these children, that citizenship be transferred from a mother to her child so that children born to these types of marriages are allowed to get identity papers and be officially recognized in the society in which they are living.

Economic and Social Impacts of Immigration

According to official statistics, there are 2,350,000 Afghan residents in Iran.  Out of this number, 1,600,000 are employed.  We must consider that 91% of this group are not specialized and they occupy non-professional jobs in Iran.  The interesting point is that 64% of Iran’s population is without professional training, and we assume similar opportunities exist for them as well.

We must also accept the fact that the uncontrolled presence of Afghans in the Iranian community, intermarriage with Iranian citizens, owning property, the occupation of a permanent job and the birth of Afghan children in Iran, have made this group ever more dependent on Iran, and that parting from the second country and its comforts has become difficult for the Afghans.

What is certain is that in recent years, due to the relative calm in Afghanistan and the negative impact of Afghan criminal elements, sensitivity to their presence has been increasingly felt among the people and by the government.  This is a fact that, had authorities planned for it since the start of migration and settlement of Afghans, would not have put us in such difficult position.

According to some experts, considering the statistics, one can easily see the danger of ethnic employment, which has a direct impact on the economics of Iranian people, including reduction in general living standards in the country and employment refusal in jobs that are considered difficult and menial.  This is especially difficult for provinces with a large immigrant population such as Kerman, Sistan and Bluchistan, Hormozgan and Northern, Razavi and Southern Khorasan.  Among these, one must also consider the impact of national subsidies, the transference of funds outside of the country, the creation of pseudo jobs, the population increase, immigrants’ refusal to pay taxes and the large sums of funding that must be set aside for the administration of these individuals.

International Rights

Access to education is one of the most basic rights of every human being, as has been noted in the International Human Rights Declaration.  Amendment 1 in Article 26 of the declaration places emphasizes this by stating: “Access to higher education must be provided with equal opportunities for everyone, so that everyone can benefit based on their own abilities”.

According to Article 6 in the convention related to refugees: “Every refugee must be provided with the opportunities they had prior to becoming a refugee, unless it is with opportunities that they are not eligible for”.

According to international rights agreements, everyone stepping into a country must be granted all human rights, including the right to education.  Therefore, countries must either not accept refugees or, if refugees are accepted, then all possible facilities for healthy living must be provided by the host country.

Nonetheless, some people believe that, considering all the difficulties in educating Iranian students and the difficulties in gaining access to government-run universities, dividing the opportunities between Iranian students and foreign subjects is not acceptable.

Choosing a suitable path by which the Iranian government may observe their international agreements as they relate to the rights of refugees, and at the same time to resolve the difficulties associated with an ever-increasing number of refugees, appears to be a difficult one.