The mother of Afghan Canadian fears can be returned to Taliban’s hands after having almost killed it

A Canadian Afghan calls on the federal government to speed up the refugee sponsorship process for his mother, who fled Afghanistan after being beaten by the Taliban and is now hiding in Tajikistan to avoid deportation to Kabul.

Noorullah Hakemi, who lives in Ottawa and came to Canada in 2019, said his mother, Bibi Khatoon Yaqoubi, 57, remains in danger because the authoritarian government in Tajikistan has ordered the deportation of Afghan refugees.

“She lives in good condition for the moment from the point of view of health, but it is not a good state from the point of view of security,” Hakemi told CBC News.

He was advisable to the Afghan government before the Taliban took power.

“There is a huge violation of human rights (in Tajikistan). They stop people, they beat people, they torture people,” said Hakemi.

Media reports in English in the region in June said that the authorities of Tajikistan had launched radical immigration raids targeting Afghan refugees.

Rafi Ferdous, founding member of the Afghan-Canadian Council, said that 3,000 Afghan refugees in Tajikistan were waiting for the treatment of their cases of refugees sponsored to come to Canada. He said that Ottawa had to prioritize these cases.

“We want the government (from Canada) to deal with cases pending in Tajikistan,” said Ferdous.

Ottawa trying to “protect” refugees for Canada

Canada allows community groups, organizations, companies and groups to call on refugees through a sponsorship program. As part of the program, sponsors are responsible for providing refugees with life and financial support, and to help them find work and organize schooling.

Throughout the late 1990s and until the early 2000s, Tajikistan was one of the main corridors of Afghan refugees used to go to Canada. The country has traditionally been hostile to the Taliban, said Ferdous.

“They (the Tajikistan government) have changed their behavior … And it’s new and it’s a bit strange,” he said.

Immigration, refugees and citizenship Canada declared in a statement sent by email to CBC News that it was “deeply concerned about reports” of the deportations of Afghan refugees by the authorities of Tajikistan.

The press release indicates that the government was working with the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to listen to the Tajikistan authorities to “protect and support Afghans intended for resettlement in Canada”.

Look | Canada denies the license for Afghan refugees faced with expulsion from us:

Canada denies the license for Afghan refugees faced with the deportation of us

Mohammad Younesi’s family received asylum in Canada after fled Afghanistan, but Younesi ended up in the care of American immigration and the application of customs after being separated from their family. Now, after being denied a temporary resident permit to enter Canada, Yonesi could be sent back to Afghanistan, where his family worries, he will be killed. (Correction: a previous version of this video description indicated that the family was introduced as a smuggling of Afghanistan. In fact, they fled the country after obtaining humanitarian visas from Brazil.)

Global Affairs Canada declared in an email sent by email that Canada does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan and that the group remains listed as a terrorist entity.

The press release indicates that Canada was monitoring the treatment of Afghan refugees in Tajikistan, as well as Pakistan and Iran.

Helen Thibault, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nazarbayev in Astana, Kazakhstan, said that there could be several factors behind the decision of the government of Tajikistan to return the Afghan refugees to the weapons of a Taliban government.

Thibault said Tajikistan could follow the example of Russia, which recognized the Taliban as legitimate leaders in Afghanistan.

“Whenever Russia does something, Tadjikistan is one of the first countries in Central Asia to follow,” she said.

“Copy effect”

The Tajikistan government could also feel pressure on resources by organizing around 10,000 Afghan refugees in a small country, she said. The majority of refugees are in the poorer and more rural southern region bordering Afghanistan, said Thibeault.

“It may be that Tajikistan sees what is going on in the United States and said:” Oh, well, you know, it’s an acceptable practice now. We can expel anyone who raped our migration laws. “It’s like a copy effect,” she said.

For Hakemi, the motivations do not change the fear he faces every day knowing that his mother could be seized and deported to a country under a regime that almost took life.

“Of course, I’m afraid, she is not where she is supposed to be,” he said. “Where she lives is not stable. If she returns to Afghanistan, I don’t know what’s going on with the Taliban there. “”

Hakemi said that his mother’s sponsorship was organized through an immigration group for Afghan women in Toronto.

He said his mother fled to Tadjikistan in December 2024 after withdrawing from a battery in the hands of Taliban officials who left him two fractured legs and a fractured left hand, as well as other injuries, according to a report subjected to Canadian immigration officials who included medical files and photographs.

She was dragged into the street, whipped and beaten in front of a crowd during August 15, 2024, celebrations marking the return of the Taliban to power, according to the report.

“There were two other women. I told them that the Taliban were murderers and all of this,” Yaquobi said in an audio statement she recorded for CBC News describing her ordeal.

“These women told the Taliban what I said. The Taliban withdrew from the car and beat me. I was unconscious and I found myself in the hospital … When I regained consciousness, I realized that my arms and my legs were broken.”

The case of Yaquobi was filed with the office of Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan.

The Bennett office did not respond to a request for CBC comments.