KABUL — Tom Kmiec, Deputy Speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, has marked Hazara Genocide Memorial Day by saying that Hazaras in Afghanistan continue to endure persecution and targeted violence more than a century after Amir Abdur Rahman Khan’s brutal campaigns.
“By preserving historical memory, we honor the victims, support the survivors, and ensure that these tragedies are not forgotten,” Kmiec said in a video statement issued for the occasion.
He added that Abdur Rahman Khan’s orders in the 1890s to carry out “mass killings” and “forced displacement” decimated the Hazara population, leaving more than half killed or driven from their homes.
Addressing Hazaras in Canada and around the world, Kmiec stressed: “You are not forgotten.”
September 25 is observed as the day the Hazara genocide began, when Abdur Rahman Khan, then ruler of Afghanistan, launched systematic campaigns against the Hazara community between 1891 and 1893.
Historians and rights groups have long described those atrocities as a “genocide” and one of the darkest episodes in Afghanistan’s history.
In October 2024, the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development officially acknowledged the massacre of Hazaras during Abdul Rahman Khan’s reign and their ongoing persecution under the Taliban rule.
In the 39 months since the Taliban’s return, at least 61 targeted attacks against Shia Hazaras have been documented, including suicide bombings, IED blasts, shootings, armed assaults, beheadings, and unexplained killings.
These attacks have killed at least 473 people and wounded 681—averaging one death every three days and one injury every two. Of the 61 incidents, 12 were attributed to Taliban forces, 16 to Islamic State–Khorasan (ISKP), one to armed Kuchi nomads, while 32 remain unclaimed.
Advocates have urged Ottawa and the international community to recognize the genocide of Hazaras, calling for concrete measures to protect Hazara refugees and ensure accountability for ongoing abuses.
