Thursday, January 21, 2010

I wish I would be a child forever

When I was a child , I had a life full of everything and nothing , I did not care too much about things around me and life was limited to a 12 meters room which I lived there , everything was a just like a toy for me which I could play with , and my parents was a support for me who had never left me alone , I did not have any challenges in my mind , no …………


But it didn't take too much , soon I found my self into a world of inequality and injustice and the afghan label ,seems to be attached in my forehead, condemned me to be an afghan ,when I start learning in the primary school , I start to understand that what a great religion is Islam and what a shameful followers are Muslims ,my religious teachers taught me that Islam has no border ,Muslims are like brothers to each other ,no body is not superior to another and the only criteria of being superior is virtuousness but it seems that there is a big comparison between what Islam ordered us to do and what we Muslims are doing , I soon fall into a dilemma situation, I hated the moments in which the Iranian authorities had announced the Israel government as a terrorist while his Muslim basij militia ,the unknown soldiers of Imam Zaman, violated afghan dignity .

You are still crying for the innocence of Imam Hussein and his allies which martyred by Yazid dastardly, still go out into streets in Ashura to mourn for him. Still talking about the day of resurrection and your saved home which is near to Prophet Muhammad, and still feel sorry for those who are going to hell.


But you never feel the disturbed situation of an afghan in a crowded bus who is afraid of your insults that are bitter than poison , but still this afghan tries to break his dignity perhaps you may show your hospitable character and shout "go to you country damned afghan"
Still you can not feel the situation of a little afghan child who is forbidden of taking part into school just because of being afghan and still you can not feel the situation of a father who is deported while he has his family left in Iran.


Still you try hide your real character among the global community and still you deny what a shameful action committed by you in SAFID SANG refugee camp.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

A nice dream which I hope come true

It is 3 P.M. I am in the airplane, the fly attendant announced that we are in the sky of Afghanistan and the plane will be landed within few moments……….


the plane has just landed ,I came out ,wow what a nice sunset ,it sounds too familiar for me the passengers all came out and we are waiting in a line to be checked, they are also many other afghans who was born like me years before in Iran, you can find easily how happy they are like walking in the sky ,the lady who is in charge of searching passports seems too kind , she asked my passport , after a few moment she said "welcome to Afghanistan" it is my first time to hear this , and she guided me to get my suitcase when I came down the escalator but I do not have any suitcase or better to say nothing important than an small bag ,they are many people who are waiting to get their suitcases, among them I can see a man around 40 who is paralyzed ;his hand is cut and he has 2 suitcase so I decided to help him ,he feels shy I do not know why ,but I got one of his suitcase , while walking I asked him about his hand , he said he was working in a factory in Iran and there he lost his hand while working ,in fact, as he described the cutting machine has cut his hand and then his boss expel him out because he is no more useful and will not come in handy and it is the reason that he came to his country.

In the airport they are plenty of people who are waiting for their relatives ,oh I can not see anybody around there who is waiting for me , I am alone here and now I find how hard is to be alone while everybody finds his/her own relative among the crowd.

But I am trying to keep my hope firm as I chanted inside;

"Yes you are in Afghanistan" I chanted with myself.

You are not a foreigner anymore ,here is your own land , no more threat, no more insult, no more racial discrimination, no more ……………..I am chanting all these while I am walking in the lobby ………….

My something sound wrong here there is sound who is calling me , it seems to be my mom's voice which is saying , Muhammad ,Wake up …………………………..

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

This is how I feel in Iran….

This is how I feel in Iran….
Here I am…
Stuck in a place I don’t want to be...
This is like a jail sell,
But much larger…
I can’t wait till I leave…
This place is killing me…
I just want to go home…
The devil has his hold…
I can’t escape his cold…
Can’t I just go home?
I am stuck here…
Feeling home sick…

Thursday, January 7, 2010

In support of afghan refugees

There is a deadline in newspapers that the officials of interior ministry announced again that the children of afghan refugees in Iran must not and can not be educated and take part in Iranian public schools. This agenda has issued under the agreement of Iran and united nation.


Apparently, the effects of this agenda have not been taken into consideration and it is only a faulty and ineffective solution for the current afghan problems in Iran.

And about this there are a few points:

1-for a large country like Iran with a population of more than seventy million people ,presence of less than two million foreigners that about 1.5 million of them are afghan nationals ,not only does not have any harm but also if we look into the following events in these last decades in the field of labor ,could be useful. To explain more it must be note that those who are in touch with the construction and agricultural workers including the brickworks, drilled wells ,anima husbandry, simple workers and etc , know that they will face with lack of Iranian national workers, therefore the expelling of foreign workers under the pretext of they occupied employment vacancies of the Iranian ,nor could be useful neither feasible, because the jobless Iranians are mostly are those who are not willing to do such a back-breaking jobs and it seems that if they had been interested in doing these jobs ,they would do it before . Does all this Diploma and Bachelor degree holders, who are jobless, are wiling to work in the deserts and villages, furnace burner homes, animal husbandry homes ,poultry farming ,in depth of wells ….?

2-as the foreign nationals in any country are in the minority and in Iran, we have Afghans who are of immigrant minorities, their low crimes are deeply conspicuous and soon will be published in mass Medias and it brings a big hate of Iranians toward Afghans than any other crimes. It is crystal clear that crime of foreigners is not acceptable for the host country, therefore the if the officials who have the statistics of crimes which committed by afghan nationals, compare it with the Iranian crime rates and present it, it could be predicted that ration of afghan crimes are very small than the ratio of Iranian one.

3-suppose that the authorities do not accept or accept the two cases above but finally based on a expert ional framework, they could understand that the situation of Afghanistan is good enough that its nationals from all over the world including Iran would come back to their country, and would be shared in construction of their country and it is a help to our neighborhood country and Muslims who today have a independent and powerful central government and supported by the global community. Therefore the reason of expelling afghans is to develop their country and the only aim is to help Afghanistan if so ,we should change the method of expelling them ,we should not use "force" to do this.

we opened the border of Iran to support the Muslim state of Afghanistan who were dominated by the soviets union, and they came and found job, and they showed their sense of responsibility to our works , married by the Iranian girls ,produced children and treated kindly ,but when US occupied their country and manufacturing has stopped ,we worked hard to and tried to dismiss them, while if the manufacturing and industry in Afghanistan had not been stopped , there would be no reason that afghans who are dismissed came back again.

4-the writer of this article like many other Iranians would not be satisfied when a number of non-Iranian live illegally in our suburbs and villages while they are serviced without paying any tax or charges ,therefore we could easily legislate some rules and run it that could help afghans to enter to Iran legally and in return to the services that we offer them they could pay something like taxes ,but also this would cause some tensions over the laboring system.

5-in any case they are many afghans who are living and working illegally in Iran and forms many families, and the government is trying to expel them under any sorts of condition, Is this fair that in this situation their families especially their children be under pressure .The reality is that the situation of afghan's life in metropolitans and also in small cities ,are regretful. But even in such a difficult situation, they have many intelligent and smart children and if the situation gone as their wishes, many of them could reach to high and advanced levels, as the children of many political figures of Afghanistan who were allowed to educate in Iran, reached many great levels and today they are served to their country.

6-preventing from education of afghan children, that could be result in lagging behind of many talented-Muslims from educating, has many bad effects. Does preventing afghan children from education could force Afghans to back to their land?

Is it fair to punish the child of a father who committed a crime? Do afghan children who have not any role to be in Iran or to come back must be forbidden from education?

7-suppose that thanks to this plan that forbids afghan children to study, we could expel all of them from Iran. Do you know that in a short future, like 20 years later, what kind of problems they wouldl make to their neighborhood country, Iran, because of all obstacles which we made for them? Don't these Afghans were our countrymen 130 years ago? Don't we have similar history? Don't many of these great figures of art and culture of Iran were originally afghan? So , why we are willing to expel these Farsi-spoken Afghans while it could cause that they hate us. Can we forbid those individuals who are in love with education, to educate and force them to accept that there are friendships and concord among us? Is this mean Islamic solidarity? I hope that the official reconsider their decision.

Written by: Mustsfa Ezade                                          Translated by:Muhammad

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Differences between you and me!!!!




You are from Iran and I am from Afghanistan.


You were born with lots of different toys and have a room of yourself and your walls are printed by nice photos.

I was born as I could hear the sound of my parent's hearts which were worried about my future .



You open your eyes while your parents are smiling and you were sure that you have someone who care about you and never going to be captured by Basij.

I open my eyes while my father was captured by the militia group, Basij, just for being afghan, and my mom feel cut off from any support just god.



You passed your childhood period with the presence of your parents.

I passed my childhood period while my dad was deported to Afghanistan as we are alone and illegal here.



When you got 7, you were supported by your parents and government to take part in public school.

When I got 7, I was forced to do manual works because my father has just backed and we were in a heavy debt.



You go to school at 8 A.M when you got up in the morning when you are all rested and ready to learn.

I go to a secret-school at 8 P.M when I finish my work and too tired.



You are welcomed by milk and enriched bread at your school.

I am welcomed by the threat of police officers who want to close down my school.



You walk to school while your head is up and carry your backpack.

I walk worried and look carefully whether any police or labor-ministry staffs are following me or not, as my principal cautioned us.



Your school is supported by law and government and called legal school.

My school, my teachers and my principal is wanted by law and government and called illegal school ,teachers and principal and the only crime that they committed is that they are heading and teaching us and our school called secret school.



Your school has a big billboard which is written the name of your school in it, many big classes and benches to sit and a big soccer salon and a prayer hall which has many religious programs in holy days.

My school has a small white door which you can not understand it is a school, it has 3 small rooms which we learned to call it class, instead of bench we sit on short-napped carpets which has many holes in it.



You are about 20 in your class and a teacher who passed university degrees, you have some special rooms which you called it laboratory.

We are about 50 in our class and a teacher who has just passed high school and we have a special room which we can hide into when police officer came to close down it.



You are called a first class citizen in your country and could go everywhere in your holidays.

I am called an illegal immigrant in your country and must stay home in holidays as we are ILLEGALL.



But do we have any similarity??????????????????????

YES WE ARE BOTH HUMAN ,WE ARE BOTH MUSLIM,WE ARE BOTH SHIA,WE ARE BOTH BELIEVE IN HUMAN DIGNITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS BUT JUST IN TALKS BUT NO ACTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, January 1, 2010

Afghan Refugees in Iran Learn to Keep School a Secret




This article is printed by Los angles times .


SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER


Education: Children of illegal immigrants, excluded from regular classes, make do with bare facilities that are at risk of being shuttered.


POUNAK, Iran — In this hilly suburb west of Tehran, Afghanistan's future sneaks into Nabil's courtyard at the end of a narrow alley.
The children who enter through the white metal gate are in the country illegally and therefore are forbidden to attend Iranian schools. So they come to Nabil's secret version, run by the Afghan expatriate in his 10-by-12-foot living room with peeling plaster and little else.
At Nabil's school, there are no brightly painted murals such as those decorating Iranian ones. Nor do the Afghan elementary schoolgirls here wear neatly pressed black, blue or green uniforms, as do their Iranian counterparts. There are no chairs or tables, only an erasable marker board propped against the back wall.
More startling, perhaps, is that the Afghan boys and girls attend class together in a country where segregation of students by sex is strictly enforced by law. There isn't enough space to split them up, said Nabil, 28, who asked that his last name not be used because he fears prosecution.
Space is so tight that Nabil is forced to conduct his illegal school in two-hour shifts divided by grade to accommodate the 80 students. A few Persian-language math and grammar books clandestinely purchased from Iranian education officials at a 20% markup are the only tools his four Afghan teachers have to conduct class.
What the school lacks in supplies, however, the students make up for in spirit, eagerly absorbing every lesson while sitting at perfect attention on the freshly swept floor.
"Children, have you done your homework?" a black chador-clad Shima Jaffari asked on a recent Saturday. "Ba-leh!" her 10 fourth-graders responded affirmatively in Persian, Iran's official language and the one taught at all such illegal schools. All hands flew up when Jaffari asked for a volunteer to write sums on the board.
A legal resident of Iran for the last two decades, Nabil said he runs his school at great personal risk. If his landlord finds out about it, he will kick Nabil, his wife and their young daughter out. It doesn't help that their Afghan neighbors who share the four-room structure are complaining about the large number of children.
But it's a risk that he and other expatriates insist on taking. Thousands of secret, illegal schools for Afghan immigrants have sprung up all over Iran, in homes, warehouses and anyplace else principals, teachers and desperate parents can find.


"We teach boys and girls, Sunni and Shiites, from all tribes," Nabil said. "This is the thing they need as much as they need food."
Recently, the schools received a helping hand from Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, whose credits include "Journey to Kandahar," the tale of an Afghan Canadian journalist returning home to rescue a despondent sister.
"We should not forget that saving Afghanistan is not possible without saving Afghans," Makhmalbaf wrote in a newspaper editorial last month. He called on the world community to provide funds to educate 500,000 Afghan children--$15 for each one--in Iran, pledging to help 10,000 children at his own expense.
Agency Responds to Plea


The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees was the first to respond to Makhmalbaf's call. Its Tehran office will spend $30,000 for supplies and furniture for dozens of Afghan schools here, agency spokesman Mohammad Nouri said.
In Afghanistan, education has come to a virtual halt. At a news conference last month, Ismail Khan, governor of Afghanistan's western Herat province, described an "educational poverty" created by Taliban rule. But he added that the advent of winter and the fight to drive the Taliban out of power would delay reopening of schools until spring.
That means schools such as Nabil's are one of the few places where Afghan children are receiving an education.
Children at the schools learn basic reading and writing, with an occasional field trip to a museum in Tehran. Nabil and other members of the Council of Immigrant Schools formed by the principals are developing a curriculum of Afghan culture, geography and history that they expect to introduce at the illegal schools next fall.
"In no way is what we do enough," Nabil said. "Today, you need so much more, such as computers, science. The only thing we can do is to teach them to read and write at a primary school level."
Even that comes at a hefty price, given minimal outside help, Nabil said. His students are required to pay a little more than $3 a month, a small fortune for illegal Afghan families who earn, on average, $2 a day. Nabil's four teachers make $18 a month each.
Illegal Afghan immigrants "live in very bad circumstances because they don't have documents," said Yusef Vaezi, who heads the foreign division of Afghanistan's Islamic Unity Party and is based in Tehran. "Their children can't go to school, and they don't have the same rights as [legal] immigrants. But we understand that the arrival of so many Afghans has presented problems for Iran."


Fatemeh Haghighatjuo, a member of Iran's parliament, agreed.
"Education should be for everyone, but we are not a rich country. Even Iranian [children] are suffering because of limited resources, and therefore we can't give any to Afghans," said Haghighatjuo, who serves on the parliament's education and research committee. "If the international community was willing to provide money, then we could support such schools."
Principals Complain
According to Iranian census figures, nearly 2.6 million Afghans live in Iran, although many illegal immigrants are probably not included in that number. At least 200,000 legal Afghan immigrant children attend Iranian schools, according to the Interior Ministry.
Foreign aid officials estimate that two to three times as many Afghan students attend illegal Afghan schools in Iran.
Often, principals of the illegal schools come to Vaezi to complain about local authorities shutting them down, he said. "We go to the Interior Ministry, but the ministry shrugs and says it's up to the local authorities. It's very bad, but what can we do?"
Last year in Mashhad, police shut down 18 schools, Nabil said, leaving 10,000 students stranded. At the urging of sympathetic Iranian authorities, several of the schools reopened as "Koran schools" a few months later.
Despite immigrants' pleas to local U.N. officials and the Interior Ministry, the schools have not been legalized, Nabil said.
That has many illegal Afghan immigrants such as Shafi Rezai, from Kabul, the Afghan capital, banging on the door of the Tehran office of the U.N. refugee agency, pleading for relocation to a country where Afghan children can be taught.
"The situation here is not suitable," Shafi, 14, said in English. "We want to resettle somewhere else where they accept Afghan refugees and let them go to school."
Others, such as the parents of 9-year-old Shiva Faezi, scrape together what money they can to send their children to illegal schools.
The oldest of four children, Shiva rises each morning at dawn, scrubs her face and hands with cold water, then prepares breakfast for the male members of the family. Her cheeks bear scars from leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sand flies that many Afghan refugees here contract but cannot afford to treat.
To get to school every afternoon, Shiva travels half an hour by public bus, then walks uphill for 20 minutes to Nabil's house. Shortly before the lesson begins, she picks up a crude brush made of twigs and tidies the classroom floor, sending clouds of dust into the air.


Hers is a traditional life, but Shiva has untraditional dreams. She wants to be a doctor, she explained, her hazel eyes lighting up as she proudly displayed her neatly written grammar homework.
"I wish it were longer," she said of her abbreviated school day. The Iranian school she attended for three years using a cousin's residency card was better, even if Iranian students ostracized her for being a "dirty Afghan," Shiva said.
She was forced to leave the school this year when her true residency status was discovered by the administration.
Shiva is the only one in her family who can read. Her father took her 7-year-old brother out of school because he refused to apply himself, the girl said.
But Shiva's dreams and her parents' hopes for her came to an abrupt end in the fall. Unable to fend off his irritated neighbors any longer, Nabil was forced to close the school.
He found a landlord willing to rent a building to the school for at least one year, but the $3,000 price tag is one neither he nor his students can afford.

The starting moments of this blog

Here in this blog ,I am going to pose some obstacles of afghan students in Iran .
about 130 thousands of afghans are studying in Iran and lack of residence card for them is one of thier problems.
30 years of war in Afghanistan left 80 percent of the schools demolished and two milion students study at outdoor in my country.
and also 50 percent of 6 milion students in Afghanistan are deprived of all academic opportunities.
The UNCHR representative in Iran said :"10 persent of Afghanistan 's population live in Iran today ,and in the other words,one 35th of Iran's current population are Afghans."
So the guestion is here that howere most of these students were in Iran and based on the International laws ,these afghans must have an Iranian nationality,but not only they do not have this identity but also must of them called illigal residents in Iran .
and as president Ahmadinejad came to power ,pressures are increasing rapidly to deport these afghans back to thier land.

Just want to test

Just want to test