Nazam Abad village is located at kilometer 12 of Qazvin-Rasht road and according to local websites, it has a population of approximately 4,500 people. Some sources claim that this village is on the verge of becoming a city and is awaiting approval from the government. This village has been a settlement for Afghan immigrants for the past 30 years and until three months ago, more than 120 Afghan families were living in this village.

On April 7th of this year, after the rumor of a mentally disabled girl from the local area being impregnated by an Afghan man spread, a group of villagers attacked the homes of Afghans and destroyed some houses and looted others.

Police authorities have not yet been able to find the perpetrator of the assault on the native girl, and the issue of the assault itself remains a question to this day and is still shrouded in ambiguity. However, in the midst of this, dozens of young people from the native region have attacked the homes of Afghan immigrants, destroying and looting empty houses, and throwing stones at homes where the owner was present and the lights were on. In the process, several sheep have been stolen or killed by the attackers, and several motorcycles have been set on fire, while dozens of Afghan immigrants have been beaten and assaulted on the streets.

The sources that spoke with the reporter admitted that despite the presence of law enforcement, no action was taken to stop the attackers and they were only witness to the beating and abuse of migrants by local residents. Some of these sources estimated the number of attackers to be up to 100 people.

The strange point of this story was that the Islamic council of Nazam Abad village, instead of supporting Afghan citizens, asks them to leave the village in order to protect their lives, and as a result of this request, close to 100 Afghan migrant families have abandoned their homes in the village and moved to other areas.

One of the Afghan residents of this village said during a peace talk, “When we were attacked, the officials of the village council were present and with their guidance and encouragement, the issue was resolved.”

In another part of the conversation, he stated: “For a few days, there had been a rumor in the village that Afghans had raped a young girl. On the night of April 7th, a group of people with their faces covered attacked the homes of Afghans, breaking the windows of any house that had a light on and looting the homes that were empty. The police were also present but did not intervene in any way.”

This is while Ali Nasiri, a member of the Nizamabad Village Council, has told a local website: “Only five houses – Noor Mohammad Arab, tenants of Karbalai Fazlollah, tenants of Mashhadi Sattar, tenant of Hajj Saifi and one house that I personally went to at 2 am with a phone call from an Afghan tenant – were attacked and only windows were broken.”

He also claimed: “When we found out about the incident, we went to the location and it took only a few minutes for the first police unit to arrive. The police and local officials were busy talking to the protesters in the square, when a report came in about a group of teenagers attacking the old part of the village where Afghan families gather. The distance from that location to the main square is less than 5 minutes on foot.”

One of the Iranian residents of Nazamabad village, who did not want their name to be revealed, also spoke about peace: “For years, Afghans have been living alongside Iranians in the village without any serious conflicts. This time, if it weren’t for the interference of some council officials, this would not have happened. Afghans and Iranians have many common interests in Nazamabad and they benefit from each other in livestock and agriculture. It is not clear who and how they benefit from the departure of Afghans, but this position will become clear in the next few months.”

The story of the beating and injuring of Afghans on the 18th of Farvardin (April 7th) does not end, and during the following days, most Afghan students in this village, who are over 50 people, are beaten and abused by their classmates in school; to the point that the school officials are asking the parents of Afghan students not to send their children to school for a while.

One month after the Nazmabad incident, the local website of Qazvin reported: “The council of Aghababai village, located a few kilometers from Nazmabad, has held a meeting and signed a document demanding the expulsion of Afghan residents who are legally living in this area.”

This issue, which had been denied by the district mayor, was confirmed by Mohammad Reza Maleki, one of the members of the village council of Aghababa. He continued, “The residents requested that we make a decision to have the Afghans leave the village due to the problems they had caused.”

The tragic incident in Nazmabad, which was reported to the media with a delay – and not to a significant extent – was not the first time that the native people of a region in Iran had destroyed homes and physically assaulted Afghan immigrants. In early July of 2012, in the city of Yazd, after the discovery of the body of an 18-year-old girl in a well, who was said to have been raped, and the arrest of an Afghan immigrant as a suspect, the local residents attacked and set fire to the homes of both the native people and the Afghan residents in the area.

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To better understand these atrocities, imagine that in one of the cities in the United States or Canada, due to a crime committed by an Iranian immigrant, the American or Canadian citizens attack the homes of all Iranians in that city, beating and looting them. Then, instead of defending the legal rights of the Iranian immigrants, the local authorities ask them to leave the area.

Considering that crime is solely a personal act and all Afghan citizens should not be punished even if a crime is committed by an Afghan immigrant, and with a general look at the incident in Nazmabad village in Qazvin and also the event in Yazd in 2012, regardless of all the political implications that these two events have caused, there is a growing need to investigate the prevalence of anti-Afghan sentiment among young people in Iran. Such incidents should be examined by psychologists and sociologists, and measures to prevent them should be implemented by government officials as soon as possible.