Amnesty International has raised concern over the recent report from Tehran that Feyz Mohammad, a 16-year-old Afghan national, has reportedly been sentenced to death by a juvenile court in Karaz of Iran. He has been accused of distributing morphine. An
Amnesty International Press Release states another example fo child execution in Iran:

"In Iran 16-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi, was publicly hanged on 15 August 2004 on a street in the city centre of Neka, northern Iranian province of Mazandaran for "acts incompatible with chastity".

Ateqeh Rajabi was sentenced to death three months earlier. During her trial she was not allowed legal representation and the judge severely criticized her dress, harshly reprimanding her. It is alleged that Ateqeh Rajabi was mentally ill both at the time of her crime and during her trial proceedings." The Press Release expressed concern over some 10 executions of under age children in Iran since early 1990s. It infers the need for legislation to deal with juvenile offenses by other means than executions.

In the case of Feyz Mohammad, there has been no one to object to the Iranian court decision or to speak for him. He has only been a poor refugee from Afghanistan caught in the distribution of illegal drugs perhaps on behalf of powerful Iranian cartels that remain unpunished and in a position to employ another young Afghan refugee child.

Reportedly more than 800,000 Afghan refugees live in Iran and over 1.5 million in Pakistan today. Afghan refugees, after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, made the largest mass of displaced persons in the history of the world. Around five million Afghans had taken refuge to Pakistan while more than two million had gone to Iran. Hundreds of thousands of others were dispersed all over the world. In the past three years millions of Afghan refugees returned under UN repatriation program and personal decision from both the neighboring countries and elsewhere. Their hopes for a successful resettlement in their own country did not realize properly and there are many who are still living in make shift refugee camps in and around Kabul and other cities and regions.

Among these refugees are people who were born in refugee camps and raised in foreign lands. Among these refugees are also gown-up people who tolerated adverse conditions of refugee life and suffered humiliation as well as hunger, disease, poverty and loss of their basic human rights.

Stories abound of excesses committed against Afghan refugees by Pakistani and Iranian police. While in the beginning fraternal welcome was extended to the Afghans in the neighboring countries, with the passage of time, the economic repercussions of the Afghan exodus, created opposition to their continued stay. But the refugees started to earn a basic life by engaging in commerce, crafts and physical labor. Stories also abound of the rights of many of these workers having been trampled upon by the local profiteers who would under threat of reporting the refugees to the police would not give them their legitimately earned wages. This was not the only way the Afghan refugees suffered.

Among other perils of refuge are fear, uncertainty about future, conception of criminal ideas, theft, murder, prostitution and other social ills bred by perpetual poverty.

The tragedy of life in a refugee camp cannot fully be explained to those who have not been living in one. At a refugee camp and under conditions of displacement your values begin to change, your cultural beliefs undergo changes, your honor is threatened and your psyche is injured. In desperation, the refugee gradually becomes prone to negating his and his clan's lifelong values and starts to adopt new ones from the host society. These values might clash with his old cultural standings. On the other hand loss of his home and hearth and uncertainty of life in a new and strange environment impose a variety of difficulties on him. Psychologists have been rather slow in a study of this group of humanity, but still have developed theories regarding the mental trauma caused by displacement and refugee status.

Afghan refugees numbering almost three million in Iran and Pakistan today, still make up a big mass of humanity. Afghanistan has given up to one million of this mass the right to participate in the national presidential elections and some candidates count on their votes rather heavily. The United Nations is more than $20 million to conduct elections in about 3000 refugee polling stations in Iran and Pakistan. Yet in practicing this right so graciously awarded them by the Afghan government and the United Nations, they are under a variety pressures. For example, in Pakistan allegedly Taleban and even the ISI have started to influence the group. The former is threatening anyone who would dare participate in the elections, while the latter is encouraging him or her to vote for Karzai, now a favorite also of Pakistan. Forced repatriation is still reported from some camps and living conditions are deteriorating in the refugee camps. Situations of Afghan refugees in Iran are not very different. There, influence is exerted on the refugees to vote for Qanuni, now a favorite of Iran.

Under these conditions, there is a need for a joint government and United Nations commission to address the needs of the remaining refugees in Pakistan and Iran and to give more attention to the preparations inside Afghanistan to receive the returning refugees with dignity into peaceful environments where they can start once again a settled life free of the perils of refuge. Also the refugees should be given protection against foreign intervention regarding the way they vote in the upcoming elections. 9/17/04