Persecution of Hazara
Afghanistan's Hazara, A Long Persecuted Minority
The NDTV article "Afghanistan's Hazara, A Long-Persecuted Minority Living in Fear of Taliban" can be used to support the factual claims and legal arguments made by the applicant. This helps to establish that the applicant's fear of persecution, should they be returned, is well-founded. The following are relevant excerpts, as well as the link to the entire article.
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"Schools and rallies bombed, hospitals targeted and commuters ambushed: for years, the Hazara community has suffered some of Afghanistan's most violent assaults. Now, with the Taliban back in control, the majority Shiite Muslim group fears the Sunni hardliners may again turn on them -- just as they did during their last regime in the 1990s. And even as the Taliban have pledged a softer rule this time, a statue of a prominent Hazara leader was vandalised just days after the Islamists swept back into power." Pages 1-2
"Comprising between 10 to 20 percent of the country's 38 million people, Hazaras have been marginalised for their faith in a country riven by deep divisions. By some estimates, nearly half of the Hazara population was wiped out in the late 19th century, with many later enslaved during the conquest of their traditional homeland by Pashtuns, the country's biggest ethnic group. Throughout the centuries, the group has been subjected to slavery, religious and economic persecution, as well as displacement and ethnic cleansing. They have also been targeted by an array of different groups during the past four decades of conflict, including the vicious shelling of their areas." Page 2
"The Hazaras make up the bulk of the country's Shiite minority, which has historically been despised by Sunni hardliners who consider the sect heretics. The group has also been accused of being too closely allied to neighbouring Iran, and tens of thousands have moved over the years as economic migrants to work mostly menial jobs." Page 2