Report: Afghan student beaten at Kabul’s Embassy in Tehran, fears for safety

Mehraga Mosaddeq, an Afghan national from Parwan province, said embassy staff abruptly refused his passport renewal without justification before assaulting him.

“They punched me, strangled me, and dragged me into a room. I thought they would kill me there,” he told Shargh newspaper. The attack left him with visible injuries, requiring emergency treatment.

Mosaddeq, a political science student in Iran for over seven years, claims the violence was racially motivated, citing mistreatment of ethnic Tajiks and others opposed to the Taliban.

Despite filing a police report, he fears returning to the embassy, saying, “I just want a guarantee I’ll leave alive.”

Activists note a rise in violent incidents since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan’s diplomatic missions.

“This isn’t isolated – we’ve seen similar brutality before,” said Qamar Takavaran, a migration rights advocate. In 2023, an Iranian photographer was reportedly slapped by Taliban guards at Afghanistan’s consulate in Mashhad.

While embassies operate under their home country’s laws, legal expert Saleh Noghrehkar stressed that victims retain the right to seek international justice.