Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s Vice-President of the Judiciary for International Affairs, says that Afghan citizens make up the vast majority, nearly 95%, of all foreign nationals imprisoned in Iran.
As reported by the Iranian ISNA news agency, the Iranian official said during a meeting that they are in negotiations with the Taliban for their transfer to Afghanistan, hoping it could happen this year.
Although he did not specify the exact number of Afghan nationals still in prison in Iran, earlier Iranian authorities had announced that approximately 6,000 Afghans are currently imprisoned there.
Following Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and India have the highest numbers of foreigners imprisoned in Iran.
For decades, Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbor, has hosted millions of Afghan refugees fleeing conflict, political instability, and economic hardship in their home country.
During this period, the Islamic Republic imprisoned thousands of Afghan nationals for various offenses, including involvement in drug trafficking and murder.
Drug traffickers in Iran, one of the world’s leading executioners, often receive death sentences. In April, an Iranian rights group reported that the Islamic Republic had executed at least 14 Afghan citizens in its prisons since the beginning of 2024 for their involvement in drug trafficking.
In 2006, Iran and Afghanistan signed a prison exchange agreement to transfer Afghan nationals imprisoned in Iran to serve the remainder of their sentences in Afghanistan.
Following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, hundreds of Afghans imprisoned in Iran were transferred back to Afghanistan under the agreement signed by the republic government.
Last year, the Iranian embassy in Kabul announced that a total of 857 Afghan prisoners were handed over to the Taliban government to serve the remainder of their sentences in Afghanistan.
