Answering a question about the human rights of the Hazaras in Afghanistan from a member of the British House of Lords, Lord David Alton, the British government’s Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and United Nations, Lord Tariq Ahmad, said that “I have engaged with the Hazara community representatives here in the UK. And it is important whilst we talk about women’s rights, we do not lose sight also of minority rights in Afghanistan.”
Lord David Alton is a member of the Hazara All Party Parliamentary Group ( Hazara APPG) who launched a report on Wednesday on the state of human rights of the Hazara communities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The report outlines the situation of the Hazaras in Afghanistan and Pakistan and offers the British government with some policy recommendations:
“To recognise the Hazara community as a vulnerable group, specifically targeted in Pakistan,
“To engage in a dialogue with the Pakistani Government and raise the situation of the Hazara and the need to afford them all constitutional protections available to everyone in the country,
“To ensure that the UK provides Hazaras at risk with visas and to prioritise Shia Hazaras refugees for its settlement programme in the UK.”
APPGs are informal cross-party groupings of members of the British Houses of Commons and Lords, with no official status within parliament. As at 13 January 2023, there were 236 APPGs registered in the British parliament, including the Hazara APPG and the Afghanistan APPG.
