Translated Content:
Zeinab Marzooqi When the cars were stopped at the red light of Quds Square in Tajrish, no one knew what would happen to the passengers until the red light ended and the light turned green. When the sun had not set, Hafiz Bustani would get into his car at dawn and head to his workplace. It certainly did not occur to him that he would become one of the few Afghan citizens who were martyred in the 12-day Israeli-imposed war against Iran. Hafiz Bustani, 45, a janitor in a building in the upper city of Tehran and a worker with 5 children and a resident of the Khazaneh neighborhood, was one of the virtual citizens who had lived and lived in Iran for decades and considered Iran his homeland. At 3 p.m. on Sunday, June 15, just as he was at the red light of Quds Square in Tajrish, he was martyred in the explosion of Quds Square by Israel, alongside the Iranians present there.
I will die here, I will stay here
She says in a Dari accent: “My husband said: I will die here; I will stay here.” I pick up the phone to call the family of martyr Hafiz Bustani. The phone rings. A woman’s voice on the phone says: “Hello.” As I introduce myself, the line on the other end of the phone changes and another woman answers. Her voice is younger. She says she is the daughter of martyr Hafiz Bustani. I introduce myself again and she eagerly accepts my request to meet in person at their home. Our appointment is for tomorrow at noon. Their home is somewhere near Khazana. I kept asking myself how to address them? A friend calls me on the way and asks me to call them “compatriots” until I reach their home. “They are not compatriots, but they are sympathizers. Perhaps comrade-in-arms is the most appropriate word. The land that is shared between me, an Iranian, and my fellow citizens, and these days, all of us, Iranians and Afghans, are worried and anxious about it.”
A young girl opens the door. She is the eldest child of martyr Hafiz Bustani. It is clear from their faces that they are Tajiks. All five of Hafiz Bustani’s children were born in Iran. His eldest child is called “Samira,” she is 21 years old, and she says she was the one who spoke to me on the phone. She is relatively small in stature, but she seems older. Hafiz Bustani was a legal resident of Iran before his marriage, and we can say that he lived in Iran for almost 30 years. They go to Afghanistan for a short period of time, about a few months, and then return to Iran.
Salima Bakhshandeh is the wife of martyr Hafiz Bustani. When I ask, did you not decide to leave Iran during the war? He says: “Even if we were killed, we would stay in Iran. When some Tehranis left Tehran, we stayed in Tehran. My husband was a caretaker of a building. He would constantly visit the building and take care of the flowers and plants in the building and the people who remained. The night before, he had said that he would visit the building because of the war so that something would not happen to the doors and windows of the building. Although we had asked him not to go, he did go. At approximately 12:30, the children called him. He had said that he would pray and return. It was on his way back that Quds Square in Tajrish was attacked.” Samira Bustani, the eldest daughter of the killed Afghan martyr, also said that she had called her father several times. Finally, someone else answered the phone and said that it was the hospital security and that their father was slightly injured. He had asked them to go to the Tajrish Martyrs Hospital. They had taken the metro to Tajrish. The Tajrish metro station was flooded. Nearby, Samira saw her father's car, crumpled and badly damaged. When they went to the hospital, they took a family member to identify the body and informed his family of Hafiz Bustani's martyrdom.
Due to the decisions made for the departure of unauthorized nationals, authorized nationals have also been in trouble these days. Hafiz Bustani's third daughter, who was studying in the eighth grade of the first secondary school, had not been able to attend the exams for two subjects after her father's martyrdom and had to repeat two of them. When she attended the make-up class for those subjects at school, the school officials expelled her from the class and said that a new instruction and circular for nationals to attend make-up classes and exams in September had not yet been sent.
No instruction has yet been sent for the announcement of the martyrdom of nationals
As the family of martyr Hafiz Bustani says, the Martyrs' Foundation has not yet issued their father's martyrdom certificate. During these 40-plus days, Samira Bustani and her mother have been going to various offices every day to follow up on Hafiz Bustani's death certificate, but so far they have not reached any conclusions. Samira Bustani says: "They have not yet given us my father's death certificate. They only gave us a death certificate. They tell us that a circular has not yet been sent to us for the death of the nationals. I have also visited the Martyrs' Cemetery many times and have said that my father was martyred here and is buried here in the Martyrs' Plot. They tell me that as soon as we buried your father in Plot 42, go and thank God." The martyr's wife's heart is filled with anger and she complains angrily: "They from the Martyrs' Foundation came to our house and we explained our living situation to them. They told me to wait a while, we will take care of it. I waited a while and now it has been 40 days. I cannot tell my infant child to wait for now and not to drink formula milk. We said we have a baby. They said wait, we will take care of it. The pharmacy with the citizen code does not sell me milk and tells me to go back to your country. Wherever I go, they ask me why don’t you go back to your country? Even when I go to my husband’s hospital, in Block 42, they still ask me why you didn’t take your martyr to your country?” Samira Bustani says that before the war and the wave of departures, citizens, although they are legal citizens, had problems like other citizens. The simplest of them were SIM cards and school. During the war, their SIM cards were one-way. Samira says: “Conditions have become very difficult for legal citizens. On the one hand, there is pressure from the Taliban, and on the other hand, the way Iranians look at us. As soon as we get 5 loaves of bread in the bakery line, it becomes 6 or 7 loaves, and everyone looks at us badly. Every year, new rules and instructions are implemented for us at school. Our conditions, who have lived in Iran for decades, are no different from those of citizens who have just arrived in Iran.”
The wife of martyr Hafiz Boustani says: “If they take our lives once a year and then give them back, do we have any more lives to live? We are also against the presence of illegal immigrants and I say that if they do something illegal, they should be punished. Even if it is my child, they should still be punished.”
We cannot just share in the good things of Iran
In the conversations that Salimeh Bakhshandeh, the wife of martyr Hafiz Boustani, had with me, her only concern was being expelled from Iran. “If we are expelled from Iran, my young child grows up and seeks his father’s land, what should I answer? Should I say where his father was killed? We are more attached to Iran. We loved Iran so we stayed. When the borders were open, we stayed here. My husband said: I died here, I will stay here. We cannot just share in Iran’s good things and not want its bad things. We, like all Iranians, will stay here with them and be buried here with them. It makes no difference. If Iranians gave their martyrdom, we also gave our martyrdom. The Iranian martyr is my martyr too. I understand how much pain you have seen. There are thousands of other grieving families like mine. Several other children have lost their fathers like my child. But that doesn’t mean I should be angry with Iran, I love Iran. When my hair has turned white here, what life do I have in Afghanistan? When my husband’s grave is here, what refuge do I have in Afghanistan to go to? I am waiting for Iran to answer those who killed my husband and I will fight alongside them for this martyrdom. I am also a martyr’s family and I want to avenge the blood of my martyr. What sin did my wife commit?”
During the 12-day imposed war, due to the new security conditions, it was decided to accelerate the process of the departure of illegal citizens. It is obvious that such a decision was a considered decision to organize the situation of citizens present in the country, and was perhaps praised. For decades, Afghan citizens have been living alongside us Iranians and side by side with us in this country, with all its ups and downs. The presence of Afghan citizens in our country was so settled and even accepted in society that the survival of some jobs depended on the presence of Afghan citizens in the country. After the Taliban came to power again, we witnessed several waves of Afghan citizens entering. The increase in the number of illegal citizens in various metropolises and cities and the lack of transparency in the number of citizens present in the country had caused dissatisfaction among some compatriots, while others seized this dissatisfaction to their advantage and launched an anti-immigration project, making no distinction between legal and illegal citizens with false logic. According to the information of "Educated People", so far, Afghan citizens have had 5 martyrs and a number of wounded in the 12-day imposed war. Although the presence of illegal citizens was considered a threat to the security of the country, legal citizens, like Iranians, had martyrs in the 12 days of the imposed war, and Israeli missiles did not ask anyone about their nationality when they targeted our land.