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IranSource June 3, 2024 Print this page Shia Afghans are being brought to Iran to make up for the lack of religious Iranians

By Saeid Golkar and Kasra Aarabi

According to state-backed media in Iran, more than one hundred thousand Shia Afghan migrants in the Iranian city of Mashhad participated in state-backed mourning processions to commemorate the death of hardline Islamist President Ebrahim Raisi in late-May.

But this is far from a one-off.

In March, the presence of at least twenty thousand Afghan migrants at a state-run event in Tehran to commemorate the birth of the third Shia saint, Imam Hassanand support the Resistance Axiscaused a significant stir among Iranians.

Some Iranians have also ridiculed the Islamic Republics reliance on Afghan migrants to pack Tehrans eighty-thousand-seat Azadi stadium at a state-run ideological parade, mocking the move as further evidence of the regimes shrinking support base.

The topic of mass Afghan migration is virtually unavoidable on Iranian streets. The past year has seen a significant influx of Shia Afghans to Iransomething that is visible across every city and even in the most obscure rural areas, such as Khomein, the hometown of Islamic Republic founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

On the surface, there appear to be two explanations for this sudden surge in migration from Irans eastern border: the Taliban takeover in 2021, which caused mass displacement, and the fact that Iran has lost control over its borderswith an Afghan refugee increase of 338 percent since 2021, equivalent to 3.41 million people in just three years.

But the unusual pace with which Afghan refugees have been legally incorporated into Iranian society, despite severe backlash, suggests something greater and more coordinated is at play.

Historically, Afghans have faced state and societal discrimination in Iran. This discrimination prevented Afghans from owning homes, opening bank accounts, or buying cell phones, and Afghans also faced marriage restrictions. However, multiple reports have recently revealed that Afghan refugees en masse have been granted Iranian passports, national identity cards, and full citizenship rightsincluding the rights to work, vote, and own homes.

While many Afghans have used this avenue, others have taken advantage of recent changes to Irans migration laws, which grant immediate special permanent residence to foreign nationals interested in the Islamic Revolution or who support the ideals and securing the interests of the Islamic Republic.

In recent months, the mass participation of Shia Afghans at regime-organized eventsincluding speeches made by the president and supreme leader, state-run Shia Islamist processions, and even rubber-stamp electionssheds light on how the Islamic Republic is proactively using Afghan migrants to foster a loyal constituency and fill the widening gap between the state and Iranian society. As one Shia Afghan migrant declared on state television during the highly engineered March parliamentary elections, which were boycotted overwhelmingly by the Iranian population, Its my great honor to come to the ballot box and vote for the Islamic Republic.

This resembles the clerical establishments demographic engineering abroadrepopulating Sunni and Christian neighborhoods in places like Syria and Iraqwhere Shia migration, mainly from Afghanistan, has been used to facilitate Tehrans ideological and security needs. This model not only consolidates the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) suppressive security apparatus but serves to Islamize societies and change their identities according to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneis grand ideological project.

Against this backdrop, the pace at which Afghan Shia migrants have been incorporated into the Islamic Republics ideological and propaganda pillars raises serious questions. Is the regime deliberately manufacturing demographic changes in Iran through migration to engineer the supreme leaders long-held objective of achieving a so-called Islamic society?

As Khamenei has repeatedly argued, creating an Islamic society can only be achieved after creating a true Islamic government. The de facto appointment of hardline Islamist cleric and Khamenei protg Ebrahim Raisi in the 2021 presidential elections was designed to complete that first step so the regime could move toward an Islamic society, as noted by the supreme leaders representative to the IRGC.

From the start of the revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic has taken two approaches to Islamizing Iranian society: from above, through top-down imposition, and from below, focusing on grassroots projects such as establishing Basij militias and mosques in every neighborhood.

Despite all these efforts, Iranian society today is anything but Islamic. A leaked poll conducted by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance from 2023 revealed that 73 percent of Iranians seek a secular state, contrary to regime propaganda. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in 2022 following the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini for improper hijab brought these data to life.

Videos of women and men burning the compulsory Islamic veil and the Quran, the torching of mosques and Shia eulogy centers, and the new trend of turban tossing to mock the Shia clergy revealed the extent of secularization in Iranian society.

In many ways, the uprising was the final nail in the coffin for Khamenei and his hardline followers attempts to achieve an Islamic society among Iranians.

Having tried and failed to Islamize society from above and below, the clerical establishment and the IRGC adopted a new approach to the creation of their ideal Islamic societyIslamization from outside.

Migrants from Afghanistan and other shia comminutes are, in many ways, the perfect candidates for Khamenei to exploit to implement his project of Islamization. The Shia Afghan community is undoubtedly more religiously conservative and observant than the increasingly secular Iranian populationand Tehran is awarding full privileges to committed Shias from Afghanistan.

The current migration figures from Afghanistan underscore that engineering demographic changes in Iran is not a pipe dream for the supreme leader, but a genuine possibility that is within reach.

These figures reveal that there are as many as 6 million Afghan migrants in Iran. However, according to Seyed Hadi Kasai-Zadeh, editor of the journal Meydan-e Azad, if the current trajectory of migration continues, this figure could increase to 20 million in the next three years. Today, as many as ten thousand Shia Afghans are crossing the border into Iran. These numbers, coupled with mass Iranian emigrationwith as many as 2.2 million Iranians leaving the country in 2023 aloneand the countrys historically low birthrate reveal its population will be very different in the coming years.

Irans birthratewhich has dropped from 6.4 percent in 1980 to 1.66 percent in 2022has been a significant cause of concern for the aging ayatollah. In 2013, the supreme leader demanded that Irans population increase to 150 millionwhich he deemed necessary for the establishment of a new Islamic civilization. To achieve this, the regime has employed both incentives for baby makingsuch as providing free housing or high-speed internet to married couplesand forced impositions, such as banning contraception for men and women. An anonymous IRGC official told us that all members of the IRGC must have at least two children or provide medical reasons why they cannot.

In the conspiratorial worldview of Khamenei and the clerical establishment, Irans low birthrate is part of a Western plot to decrease the global Shia population and incapacitate the workforce the regime needs to establish its new Islamic civilization. Many in Iran have interpreted the influx of Shia Afghan migrants as Khameneis attempt to remedy this. In 2023, the state-run Islamic Republic newspaper reported that, in the fall of 2022, out of 300 births in a hospital in Fars province, 294 were Afghan. These statistics simply cannot be ignored.

But how will Shia Afghan migrants contribute toward achieving Khameneis so-called ideal Islamic society? One way relates to Islamizing public life in Iran. The regime has long sought to increase attendance at mosques, Shia Islamist eulogy centers (heyats), and public ideological processionsattendance which has been significantly declining among Iranians. For example, during this years Nowruz holiday, while large numbers of Iranians opted to celebrate New Year festivities at pre-Islamic, secular historical sites, a reported thirty thousand foreign migrantsthe overwhelming majority of whom were Afghangathered in Mashhad at the holy shrine of eighth Shia saint, Imam Reza.

Islamic morality policing is another example. As more and more Iranian women and men resist Islamic dress codes, the regime is seeking to actively incorporate Shia Afghan migrants in its efforts to enforce its Islamist enjoining good, forbidding evil doctrine, which underpins its morality policing codes. The finaland perhaps most importantexample relates to bolstering the IRGCs security and paramilitary apparatus. Reports have revealed that the IRGC has been encouraging Shia Afghan migration in Iran to bolster its Shia Afghan proxy, the Fatemiyoun Brigade. This paramilitary forceknown as the IRGCs Afghan Hezbollahis actively participating in the Iranian regimes militancy and terrorism abroad, including against Israel and US forces. Regime affiliates have also alluded to using Afghan migrants to suppress future anti-regime protests in Iran.

In the short term, Khamenei might be able to use Islamization from outside to fill the increasing gap between the regime and its people, and to expand his shrinking social constituency. In the medium to long term, however, such demographic manufacturing will inevitably inflame domestic tensions in Iran, further increasing the gap between the Iranian people and the regime and resulting in societal conflict between Iranians and Afghan migrants.

If Khamenei and the IRGC can control this, then they will have a better chance of preserving the Islamic Republic, undercutting the widely held belief that the modernization and secularization of society will inevitably lead to the collapse of the regime. On the other hand, if the regimes project unravels, it could increase the frequency of mass protests and violent resistance against the regimes suppression. Either way, domestic instability in Iran is about to get a lot worse.

Saeid Golkaris a senior adviser at United Against Nuclear Iran and UC Foundation associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Kasra Aarabiis the director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran. Follow him on X:@KasraAarabi.

Image: Afghan women hold portraits of their sons and relatives who were members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, which is a branch of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Quds force, and killed during the war against ISIS in Syria, during a ceremony for commemorating death anniversary of a Quds force commander in Tehran, December 20, 2022. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)

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Shia Afghans are being brought to Iran to make up for the lack of religious Iranians - Atlantic Council

The death in a helicopter crash of the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, on May 19 has triggered a presidential election one year earlier than expected. Its a consequential moment in Iranian politics as many believed that Raisi was being groomed to take over as supreme leader on the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 85.

The constitution states that an election must be held within 50 days of a presidents death in office. So the election, which was originally scheduled for June 2025, will take place on June 28 this year. When registrations closed on June 3, 80 candidates had come forward including, for the first time, a small number of women.

This long list tells us that, at this point, the supreme leaders office and its allies are keeping their options open on how to manage this election. The regime is in a difficult position. It wants to ensure that, as with the late president Ebrahim Raisi, it has a successor who will dutifully follow Ayatollah Ali Khameneis directions.

However, the regime needs a shroud of legitimacy. Having suppressed public expression since the mass protests after the disputed presidential election of 2009, it is enduring the lowest turnouts in the history of the Islamic Republic. Only 48.5% of eligible voters turned out for the 2021 presidential election and even fewer 41% in the parliamentary elections this year.

Among the candidates is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker and former head of the Revolutionary Guards. He has registered, despite failing in three previous campaigns and in the face of opposition from hardline figures in the regime.

Other prominent candidates include Ali Larijani a former parliamentary speaker who was disqualified by the Guardian Council 2021 to ensure a clear path for eventual winner Ebrahim Raisi.

From the more moderate wing of the political spectrum, Eshaq Jahangiri, who was the first vice-president in the government of reformist president Hassan Rouhani from 2013 to 2021, and centrist Abbas Akhoundi, another minister in Rouhanis government, have also applied to be candidates.

From the hardline conservative end of the spectrum, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was president from 2005 to 2013 has also registered. But it is likely that the regime, which disqualified him in 2021, will do so again, given the tension between Khamenei and Ahmadinejad during his second four-year term.

Read more: Iran: president's death has set hardliners jostling for position to replace ageing supreme leader

Saeed Jalili is likely to be a favourite of many hardliners. A former lead Iranian nuclear negotiator, he is now a fervent opponent of any interaction with the US. Hell talk tough about Irans international position and about the crackdown on womens rights and the enforcement of compulsory hijab at home.

But most of the 80 candidates whose applications have advanced are across a range beyond the hardline. Ghalibaf, a former mayor of Tehran, is more of a traditional conservative or principlist. Larijani, also a principlist rather than a hardliner, may attract centrist support. And Jahangiri is there as a representative for the reformists.

What matters is whom the Guardian Council decides is an appropriate candidate. The 12 members six clerics named by the supreme leader, and six jurists named by the parliament have consummate veto power. Their decisions on disqualification cannot be appealed.

In 2013 the supreme leaders office and thus the Guardian Council miscalculated. The council disqualified two-term former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, seeing him as a threat to the regimes crackdown on dissent. As a consolation, it allowed Rafsanjanis protg Rouhani to run, thinking he had no hope. But when the three conservative candidates approved by the council split the vote of the bloc, Rouhani won a first-round majority.

In 2021, the Council avoided that error by not only disqualifying prominent centrists and reformists, but also by removing conservatives such as Larijani and Ahmadinejad who might take votes from Raisi.

They could pursue the same tactic this time. But the risk is that, by denying any apparent choice to voters, they depress the turnout.

The advance of applications by four women notably hardline former MP, Zohreh Elahian poses a historic question for the Guardian Council. Until now, the Council has disqualified all female applicants on the grounds that candidates must be from among political or religious rijal which has tradiitonally been interpreted narrowly to mean men in politics.

But some constitutional experts and politicians have interpreted rijal to mean figures or persons irrespective of gender. And Elahian is a fierce supporter of the compulsory hijab so fierce that she has been sanctioned by Canada for endorsing the death penalty for participants in the recent woman, life, freedom protests.

Under pressure from those protests, spurred by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini detained and beaten for inappropriate attire the regime may decide to allow the right type of woman to run.

How the early election will affect the political dynamic in Iran remains unclear. The supreme leader, who is 85 and without a clear successor, called Raisi a devoted servant and he would like the same in a successor.

Jalili will undoubtedly be running, probably as a favoured hardliner. But will both Ghalibaf and Larijani be blocked, or will one even both be permitted to stand to ensure the semblance of a contest? Will that facade also include a prominent reformist such as Jahangiri?

And an even bigger question is whether the regimes chosen tactic work with an Iranian population, most of whom have been ground down by 15 years of political turbulence and repression. The regime must tread a careful line between controlling the election and risking its legitimacy in an election where few people bother to turn out.

See more here:
Iran: meet the men and women lining up to contest the early presidential election - The Conversation Indonesia

When I started researching my book, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, the law review literature asserted that racial classification, in practice, was almost entirely a matter of self-identification. While federal law specified the classifications and their definitions, in practice people could check whatever box they wanted, and no one ever checked. In fact, according to the relevant literature, there was only one case, ever, in which an individual's self-identification was questioned. This was an infamous case involving two Irish-American firefighters in Boston who claimed to be African American to take advantage of the fire department's affirmative action policies.

I was confident that there were more such cases, in part because Eugene Volokh once blogged about such a case involving whether New York State could constitutionally decide that a contractor of Spanish descent was not Hispanic for state purposes, even though he was Hispanic for federal purposes. In the end, I found a couple of dozen such cases, mostly involving minority business enterprise preferences, and mostly involving the Hispanic classification, though also others involving claims of American Indian, African American, and Asian American identity. Many of those cases wound up being cited in Justice Gorsuch's concurring opinion in SFSA v. Harvard.

I assumed that these were just the tip of the iceberg, as I relied on publicly available judicial or administrative rulings, or media coverage. Most disputes, I figured, were decided within the bowels of government bureaucracies, and the only way to find them would be to comb through thousands of unpublished records, if you could first figure out where those records were located. It wasn't sufficiently important to my book to undertake such an efforts.

That said, I did just happen upon another such dispute over identity, discussed briefly in a 1989 GAO report on fraud in disadvantaged business enterprise programs. As background, at the time Iranian Americans were classified as white, and thus not "minorities" eligible for DBE preferences, while Indian Americans were classified as Asian American and therefore were eligible.

An anonymous letter alleged that the president of an engineering DBE did not oversee the firm's day-to-day management and that the firm was controlled by the vice president, who was a white male. It was also alleged that the president was Iranian-born and thus not eligible to participate in the program. The investigation disclosed that there was no apparent problem with control since the president drew the largest sal- ary, signed all company checks, and was the only person in the firm with an engineering degree. It was also determined that the DBE president was raised in Iran and held Iranian citizenship, but that his parents were of Indian descent. During the reassessment process, the state transportation agency requested an advisory opinion from DOT concerning whether a person born in Iran to Indian parents is Iranian or Indian for purposes of DBE program participation. The state agency eventually recertified the DBE based on the DOT ruling that the controlling factor was a person's heritage not citizenship.

This decision seems correct, as Asian American is defined under federal law as someone descended from one of the original peoples of Asia. But it does raise the question of how far one can take that principal. Are Parsi Indians, descendants of Zoroastrians who fled Iran hundreds of years ago to escape Muslim persecution Indian, or Iranian? How about Baghdadi Jews from India whose ancestors moved to India from Iraq in the 19th century? Is there any statute of limitations here? In practice, though, I suspect that so long as an individual's ancestors had Indian citizenship, it's very unlikely anyone will question whether they are "really" Indian and thus Asian American.

Anyway, the existence of this case reinforces my suspicion that there are many more such cases reported somewhere in bowels of government archives.

More here:
Is an American of Indian Descent Raised in Iran and Who Held Iranian Citizenship Indian or Iranian for Affirmative ... - Reason

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi delivering his opening statement to the IAEA Board of Governors. Photo: IAEA

China, Russia and Iran, three of the seven original signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal, issued a joint statement on Wednesday, June 5, asking the European signatories to take efforts to restore the deal.

The Peoples Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation are convinced that it is time for Western Countries to demonstrate political will, stop the continued cycle of escalation that has been going on for almost two years and take the necessary steps towards the revival of the JCPOA. This can still be done, the statement reads.

The statement was delivered to the ongoing quarterly board of governors meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. The meeting which started on Monday will continue till June 6. Irans nuclear program is one of the main points on the agenda of the meeting.

The three countries believe that a fully operational nuclear deal would help reduce tensions at the international level and would benefit all the parties involved, the statement claimed. It also underlined that the international community must recognize Irans right to have a peaceful nuclear program like any other signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi claimed during the inaugural briefing of the meeting on Monday that, nuclear non-proliferation regime requires our constant efforts and determination to make sure that the legitimate nuclear activities are carried out in a peaceful manner.

However, the European signatories of the JCPOA and close US allies, the UK, France and Germany pushed through a resolution in the IAEA board meeting censuring Iran for allegedly not cooperating with its inspectors. The resolution was supported by the United States.

On Tuesday, US ambassador to the IAEA Laura S H Holgate presented her countrys position in the meeting accusing Iran of not cooperating with the IAEA and rejecting all attempts to revive the deal by calling it absurd.

JCPOA was signed by Iran and five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany in 2015. The deal allows Iran to have a peaceful nuclear program under certain restrictions and strict international observation. In return all international sanctions on Iran were lifted.

However, in May 2018, the US decided to unilaterally withdraw from the deal claiming its provisions were insufficient. The Donald Trump administration imposed numerous unilateral sanctions against Iran as well. Its European allies have also imposed sanctions against Iran.

During his electoral campaign, Joe Biden had promised to return to the deal if elected. A talk was initiated to revive the deal in April 2021 in Vienna. However, it has remained inconclusive as the US has refused to withdraw all sanctions before full restoration of Iranian compliance to the provisions of the deal.

The Biden administration has since broadened the sanctions regime against Iran. It has also leveled allegations that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons and has pointed out Irans non-compliance with the provisions of the deal.

Iran has claimed that it has stopped complying with the provisions of the deal as per the rules of the JCPOA and blames the US for the failure of the deal. It has maintained that once the JCPOA is restored it will go back to full compliance.

The joint statement of China, Russia and Iran on Wednesday called both the US unilateral withdrawal and sanctions against Iran illegal.

See the article here:
China, Russia and Iran call on the West to restore nuclear deal - Peoples Dispatch

Addressing the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Director General Rafael Grossi indicated no progress had been made in resolving outstanding issues.

He mentioned that Iran is still not implementing provisions of the nuclear safeguards agreement, and that withdrawal of designations for several IAEA inspectors are yet to be reversed.

These outstanding safeguards issuesneed to be resolved for [IAEA] to be in a position to provide assurance that Irans nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful, Mr. Grossi emphasized.

He also voiced concerns about public statements made in Iran regarding its technical capabilities to produce nuclear weapons and potential changes to its nuclear doctrine, which only deepen apprehensions about the correctness and completeness of the countrys safeguards declarations.

Nuclear Safety, Security and Safeguards in Ukraine.

Turning to Ukraine, the IAEA chief warned the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant remains precarious and that all seven Pillars of Nuclear Safety and Security have been fully or partially compromised.

These include physical integrity; functional safety and security systems and equipment; radiation monitoring and emergency response; secure and reliable off-site power supply; trained staff; an uninterrupted logistic supply chain; and open communication.

The attacks and the frequent disconnection of the off-site power lines due to military activity are creating a grave situation, Mr. Grossi said.

All six reactor units at the plant have been in cold shutdown since April, a safety measure long recommended by the IAEA. Despite this, the agencys ability to ensure the plants safety and security remains compromised due to restricted access, he added.

He further reported that Ukraines other four nuclear power plants continue to face compromised supply chains for spare parts and high levels of stress among staff.

Mr. Grossi also voiced concern over the continued and further development of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Koreas (DPRK) nuclear programme.

The IAEA has observed intermittent cooling water discharge, consistent with the operation of the Light Water Reactor (LWR) at Yongbyon, along with ongoing activities at the reported centrifuge enrichment facility.

The Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri remains occupied and prepared to support a new test.

The continuation and further development of the DPRKs nuclear programme is a clear violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions and is deeply regrettable, Mr. Grossi said, urging the country to comply fully with its obligations and to cooperate promptly with IAEA.

Rafael Mariano Grossi (right), IAEA Director General, delivers his opening statement at the 1717th Board of Governors meeting held at the IAEA Headquarters, in Vienna.

In Japan, IAEA continues to monitor the discharge of Advanced Liquid Processing System)-treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which suffered a meltdown 13 years ago, he reported.

Mr. Grossi confirmed that the discharge is progressing in accordance with the safety plan approved by Japans Nuclear Regulation Authority.

Expert independent analysis of the six batches released so far have confirmed the tritium concentration in each batch of ALPS-treated water released to date is far below Japans operational limit.

In his concluding remarks, the head of IAEA underscored the agencys key role in promoting sustainable development.

The IAEA is a crucially important vehicle for advancing sustainable development and international peace and security, he said, urging member states to continue their support for the agencys indispensable work.

See more here:
Iran's uranium stockpile grows following three years of denied access - UN News