Hazara People International Network Strongly Condemns the Racial Discrimination Against the Hazara Artists Applied by the Minister of Information and Culture and the President of National Gallery of Afghanistan

Only a few days after the racial abuse against the Hazaras by the so called Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan, that tried to forge the history of the Hazaras through a book, two Hazara artists, Mohsen Taasha and Amin Taasha faced with act of racism and violence by the Minister of Information and Culture of Afghanistan and the acting director of National Gallery of Afghanistan. Their art works were all confiscated by Sayed Enayat Assadi, the acting director of National Gallery of Afghanistan, Ahmad Wali Kazim Kiumars who is now in the Netherlands as the representative of the Afghan Artists, Mohammad Idris a clerk in the National Gallery and four policemen, based on an order released by the Minister of Information and Culture.

In the presence of German artists, these Afghan officials attacked the Hazara artists physically using racist words against them and considered their arts works as non-Islamic. Then Mohsen Taasha and Amin Taasha were taken in custody for an hour. Azizullah Hazara another artist was also taken in custody for longer.

Condemning this act of racism against the Hazara artists, Hazara People International Network believes, this plot is a part of the continuous regular organized attacks against the interest of the Hazaras.

In the passed one month, while the Kochis (nomads) along with the Taliban have attached on Hazaras in Behsud and burnt hundreds of volumes of Holy Quran, the Ministry of Information and Culture did not show any reaction against it.

And now these officials who are mostly illiterate and are not able to write a single paragraph without mistakes, justify their act of racism under the name of religion.

Among the confiscated art works of Hazara artists, there are paintings that symbolically show the systematic genocides of the Hazaras by the tyrant king, Amir Abdurahman Khan in the end of 19th century. The systematic massacre that took lives of more than 60 percent of the Hazara population as a result of which, tens of thousands of Hazaras were sold as slaves.

The lands of Hazaras in the south of (current) Afghanistan were given to the Pashtoon Kochis by the official decree of the king Abdurrahman Khan and hundreds of thousands of Hazaras were forced to flee their fatherlands.

In all these organized inhumane attacks against the Hazaras and their interests, the enemies always used the name of religion to justify their cruelty.

This racist attitude of the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan against the Hazara artists, reminds the Hazaras, the censorship and the forge of their history that contains the historical genocides of the Hazaras in the passed two centuries.

Most of the Pashtoon senior officials in the government always forge the statistics data about Hazara population and write wrong reports on Hazara population to show them fewer than they are this way, in any administrative and development plans at national level less budget is allocated to them. The latest insulting book, “Ethnographic Atlas of non-Pashtoon Ethnics of Afghanistan” was another scenario against the Hazaras this year.

In 2009, thousands of volumes of books written by Hazara authors were dropped into the river, because they talked about the history of the Hazaras. In the same year, the film The Kite Runner that shows a small part of historical discriminations against the Hazaras was banned by the Pashtoon extremists, to conceal the historical facts about the Hazaras.

Hazara People International Network considers this insult, not only to these three artists, but to all Hazara people in all over the world, meanwhile Hazara People International Network is sure, that such destructive racist plot can never affect Hazaras’ unity and progress.

Hazara People International Network invites the writers, journalists, intellectuals and politicians of Hazara society to continue their efforts for public awareness and spread of knowledge and information throughout the world, by different means and mediums of communication based on the truth and historical facts about the Hazaras.
As we know more and as we unite, we are stronger against the enemies of humanity.

Hazara People International Network

www.hazarapeople.com