U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 2003 - Iran
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Date:
1 June 2003
With nearly 2.21 million persons in need of protection, Iran continued to host the largest caseload of refugees and asylum seekers in the world. Spontaneous and assisted repatriation of 376,000 Afghans left some 2 million Afghan refugees in Iran at year's end, along with 203,000 Iraqis and 5,500 others.
Refugee resettlement from Iran continued at a slightly lower rate with 1,200 persons initiated and accepted in 2002 as against 1,600 in 2001. Only Canada, Sweden, and Finland conducted selection missions and, along with Australia, received UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) submissions for resettlement of over 1,000 Afghans, some 120 Iraqis, and about 20 Chinese Uighurs. UNHCR also assisted some 470 Iraqis to repatriate to southern Iraq, a much lower figure than the 1,700 assisted in 2001.
An estimated 38,000 Iranians either lived as refugees or sought asylum elsewhere in 2002, including 23,000 living in Iraq since the 1980–1988 war, several thousand in Turkey, and nearly 800 Iranian members of religious minorities in Austria. Some 8,000 Iranian refugees in Iraq submitted applications to return to Iran with UNHCR assistance under a voluntary program launched between the two countries in June. By year's end 1,200 Iranians had actually returned home.
Refugees in Iran
Geography, as well as the Iranian government's propensity to seek to demonstrate Iranian generosity toward fellow Muslims, has made Iran the country of choice for refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan since the mid-1970's. In addition to its historical and cultural proximity to Afghanistan, Iran has the longest contiguous border of any neighboring country with Iraq, and the movements of refugees across that border have recurred since the 1970s.
Many Afghan refugees had lived for years in the country and were in most respects welcomed and well integrated. With the departure of the Taliban from Afghanistan in December 2001, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who had fled to Iran began to return. UNHCR expressed concern that Iranian authorities may have pressured on Afghan refugees to leave, a charge denied by the Iranian government.
Documentation
UNHCR was not aware of any violence specifically targeted against refugees, nor of any discrimination against the various groups of refugees in the country. Nevertheless, it continued to consider documentation of refugees in Iran to be a serious problem, as the system of protecting refugees in Iran is generally based on complex administrative rules. Most Afghans and Iraqis are regarded as aliens or foreigners without any specific rights linked to their condition as refugees.
There are various types of documents in circulation that often do not reflect the real need for protection. The authorities still issue Refugee Booklets, initiated prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but only in exceptional cases. These are the only documents provided to Afghans and Iraqis that mention the word refugee and they must be renewed every three months.
The government also issues Residence Cards, blue for Afghans and green for Iraqis, which are of limited validity, but need not be renewed regularly. With UNHCR's intervention, the government granted Temporary Residence Cards to around 530,000 Afghans in 1995, in order to prepare for repatriations. The government extended the cards a few times, but in 1996 declared them no longer to be valid, and their bearers to be illegal aliens in Iran who should have repatriated. The authorities also issued temporary White Cards, extendable on a yearly basis, mainly to Iraqi Kurd refugees in camp who had arrived after 1988. In 1995 the government issued Laissez-Passer documents for one-way travel out of Iran either for repatriation or for resettlement, largely to promote the departure of Afghans from Khorasan province.
In September 2001, as part of a major refugee registration exercise, the government introduced a new Registration Slip. The Slips protect holders from deportation while their status is being resolved, and enables them to obtain exit permits should they resettle to a third country.
During 2002, the government instructed the relevant authorities to use the Registration Slips to distinguish between documented and undocumented foreigners living in Iran. For Iraqis, the Iranian Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA) started a process of re-registration (amayesh or, approximately, make ready), for persons previously registered in 2001. The Ministry of Interior then issued them computerized ID cards in some parts of the country. Later in the year, BAFIA announced that from the beginning of the new Iranian year, March 21, 2003, the old green Residence Cards would no longer be valid and that the new ID cards, which are white, would take their place.
BAFIA and UNHCR agreed on a screening process for Afghans subject to deportation. UNHCR was given access to all Afghans to be repatriated at provincial centers in Khorasan and Sistan and Baluchestan, except Afghans under court orders of expulsion. Afghans found by UNHCR to have been registered in the 2001 process were eligible to return to their habitual place of residence in Iran. Those Afghans who did not participate in the 2001 process could seek a UNHCR refugee status determination.
Assistance and Accommodation
Afghan refugees continued to be concentrated in the poorer rural areas of two eastern provinces bordering Afghanistan – Khorasan and Sistan and Baluchestan. But Afghans and Iraqis can also be found throughout Iran and live in all major cities. Only about 3 percent of the refugee population lives in camps, a fact the Iranian government cites with pride, saying "the Islamic Republic of Iran, in line with its humanitarian policies, has never forced refugees to remain in camps."
Refugees with residence cards are permitted to work, but are limited to 16 categories of mainly manual work, though Afghans often work without permits. Those with Refugee Booklets and Registration Slips may enroll their children in Iranian schools. At the end of 2002, UNHCR estimated that 200,000 Afghan and Iraqi children were registered at some 17,000 Iranian schools at primary and secondary level. In addition, close to 23,000 Afghan children are attending over 100 Afghan community-based schools, in the major cities of Tehran, Mashad, and Zahedan.
UNHCR uses legal committees consisting of elders from the Afghan community and Iranians to advise refugees and mediate in disputes involving Iranians and Afghan nationals.
Economic Constraints
Iranian authorities estimate that every refugee costs Iran $674 a year, and that the international community shares only $6 of this burden. The head of refugee affairs at the Ministry of the Interior declared categorically "we are not prepared to receive refugees any more, for budgetary reasons."
Poverty still prompts Afghans to send their children across borders to improve their prospects. Restrictions on employment have led to children being separated, left on their own, or sent out to work on the streets. UNHCR facilitated the repatriation of unaccompanied Afghan children, tracing the families in Afghanistan or placing five unaccompanied Afghan children with camp-dwelling families.
Afghan Repatriation
In January, UNHCR shifted its program in Iran from assisting Afghan refugees fleeing conflict in Afghanistan to supporting their repatriation due to the installation of a new internationally-supported interim authority in Kabul after the demise of the Taliban regime in December 2001. Organized repatriation of Afghans from Iran started in 2002 with the signing of a tripartite agreement between Afghanistan, Iran, and UNHCR on April 4. The agreement planned for the return of 400,000 refugees from Iran during the first year of operation, starting from the end of March 2002. Of the 376, 000 that repatriated in 2002, over 81 percent had fled to Iran after 1996, with the majority returning to the central, northern, and western regions of Afghanistan. Ethnic Tajiks made up 50 percent, followed by Hazara, Uzbeks, and Pashtun.
Voluntary Repatriation Centers were established in nine provinces hosting the highest number of refugees, namely in Tehran, Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Esfahan, Yazd, Kerman, Qom, Fars, and Markazi. In addition, UNHCR provided transportation, food, and medical services to returnees through local contractors. Under one of two voluntary repatriation programs, a total of 260,000 persons received UNHCR assistance in effecting their return.
The government supported spontaneous repatriation in 2002 with exit permits and transport for Afghans from a number of provinces, including those who had not registered with the authorities in 2001. In addition, BAFIA agreed to refer unregistered families and vulnerable individuals to UNHCR for inclusion in the organized repatriation movements. Single Afghan males took advantage of this program in particular, with 117,000 Afghans returning between April and the end of December 2002. The return of 144,000 Afghans in 2001 may have been caused by a crackdown on illegal employment, which left many Afghans with little choice but to repatriate. This may have been a factor in the returns in 2002 as well.
Deportations and Refoulement
The Iranian government continued through 2002 to consider documented Afghans to be entitled to receive protection in Iran, though they referred to such persons as migrants (mohajer) or displaced persons (avareh). The authorities continued to consider undocumented aliens as non-refugees, and introduced a deadline for all unregistered Afghans to register to leave the country by the end of August 2002. Immediately after the deadline, the authorities began to arrest both unregistered and registered Afghans indiscriminately, bringing them to deportation centers and transporting them to the borders. BAFIA agreed to refer to UNHCR those Afghans who raised an asylum claim for status determination, but made no referrals in 2002. Iranian authorities deported several hundred Afghans, mostly single men, in the course of the year. UNHCR reported that a number of women and unaccompanied minors were among the deportees.
Summary deportations included border guards arresting new arrivals as they attempted to cross into Iran and deporting them immediately in groups of less than 100 and police arresting unregistered persons in round-ups and deporting them in groups of up to 400 persons. The government denied UNHCR access to any of these deportees.
In October, the authorities agreed to establish a screening procedure for Afghans threatened with deportation, providing UNHCR with full and unimpeded access in two centers close to the border in the provinces of Khorasan and Sistan and Baluchestan. Afghans who registered during the 2001 refugee registration exercise would be allowed to return to their habitual place of residence in Iran while unregistered Afghans in need of continued protection would be sheltered in camps close to the border. The procedure, however, had not been implemented by year's end.
Iraqi Refugees
Iraqi Kurds from northern Iraq were the first group of Iraqis to seek refuge in Iran, leaving Iraq as a result of the 1975 Algiers agreement between the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein which precipitated severe repression of the Kurds in Iraq. In the 1980s the Iraqi government expelled several hundred thousand Shi'a (Feili) Kurds to Iran. In 1988 Iraq used chemical weapons on Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, such as Halabja, leading to a further exodus to Iran. Another major influx occurred in May and June 1991 in the aftermath of the Gulf war when over one million Iraqis, mainly Kurds from the north and Shi'a from the south, fled, although most repatriated shortly thereafter. In September 1996, between 65,000 to 85,000 Iraqi Kurds fled inter-factional fighting around Suleymania and Erbil. They also repatriated after only a short stay.
Over 9,000 Iraqis returned in 1998. The 2001 registration exercise indicated that the number in Iran also decreased slightly over the following two years. Repatriation continued in 2002 on a limited scale with only 470 Iraqis returning. UNHCR attributed this decline to a lack of communication between the two governments on the introduction of a new form for prior clearance.
By the end of 2002, the UN Task Force in Iran under UNHCR undertook to prepare a plan for a possible large-scale influx of new Iraqi refugees, in the event of a U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Iranian authorities agreed to allow Iraqis in need of protection to enter Iran through designated crossing points. By December 2002 the government of Iran had identified a number of temporary sites for camps in the immediate border area.
Asylum Policy
In 1976 Iran ratified the UN Refugee Convention, albeit with reservations regarding articles 17 (wage earning employment), 23 (public relief), 24 (labor legislation and social security), and 26 (freedom of movement). Both instruments have force of law in Iran. Article 155 of the Iranian Constitution states that the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran may grant asylum to those who request political asylum, except traitors and criminals under Iranian law. In 1963, prior to ratifying the Refugee Convention, the Government of Iran had adopted an ordinance relating to refugees that provided a legal and administrative framework to grant asylum to refugees, which remains in force.
Article 122 of the Labor Law of Iran provides that the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs may issue, extend, or renew the work permits of immigrants from foreign countries, particularly Islamic countries, as well as those of refugees, provided they have a valid immigration or refugee card, and subject to the written agreements of the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs.
In 2000 the Parliament (Majlis) adopted legislation requiring the Ministry of Interior to deport all foreigners without work permits to their countries of origin. Exception was made for those whose life would be threatened and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was given special responsibility to determine the presence or absence of a threat to life.
The legislation also established the Foreign Nationals Executive Co-ordination Council (FNECC) to be chaired by the Ministry of the Interior to deal with international relations and the "arrival, settlement, deportation, expulsion, training, employment, health, and medical treatment" of foreigners.
As foreigners, the law includes refugees and "displaced persons." The definition of refugees is the same as that of the UN Refugee Convention. A displaced person is defined as "a person who owing to the outbreak of civil or international war, without any formalities, leaves or is driven from his or her country of origin" but does not meet the definition of a refugee.
Iran maintained its independence in matters of refugee status determination through the year. Iranian authorities conduct refugee status determination on an individual basis through the FNECC. UNHCR noted that while to its knowledge no asylum seekers had been recognized, the authorities do not share information on the process. The government does not permit UNHCR to issue protection letters to refugees.
The government denies the applications of asylum seekers who fail to present themselves to the authorities at the border. In individual cases UNHCR has argued that this strict interpretation of Article 31 is not in conformity with the spirit of the Convention and has, in certain cases, granted refugee status under its own mandate.
Iran does not have readmission agreements with any other countries and does not admit refugees who have left Iran legally or illegally. Its representatives continue to argue that Iran has taken on more than its fair share of the international community's responsibility with regard to refugees by admitting over 2.5 million refugees on its territory, and that other countries should shoulder the burden and take responsibility for them.
Iranian Asylum Seekers
Several thousand Iranian asylum seekers continued to live in Turkey in anticipation of durable solutions to their often-irregular status. Nearly 800 Iranian members of religious minorities were stranded at the end of the year in Austria while hoping for resettlement in the United States, after having had their applications denied as a result of more stringent U.S. immigration measures in effect in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
Political developments in Iran in 2002 continued to pit popularly elected reformers, who controlled both the presidency and Parliament, against clerical conservatives, who exercised authority through the office of the Leader (held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), the Council of Guardians, the judiciary, and the armed forces. Reformers were unable to stem or reverse long-standing restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and political participation. Iran's religious and ethnic minorities, (Baha'is, Jews, Sabean Mandaeans, and Kurds) remained subject to discrimination and persecution. Although a bill for the elimination of discrimination against women was introduced to Parliament in mid-2002, strong opposition was voiced by some of Iran's religious leaders and the bill was not passed.
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