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Iran deporting Afghan refugees,says rights group

DUBAI: Amnesty International has accused Iran of forcibly deporting hundreds of Afghan refugees, but Iran on Saturday denied the report.

"In the past week, Iranian police have carried out mass arrests and forcible deportations of possibly thousands of Afghan men, women and children, denying them refugee protection," Amnesty International said in a statement sent to Reuters in Dubai by e-mail.

"The Iranian authorities have a duty to ensure that Afghans are treated with dignity and respect, not rounded up and herded out of the country to face possible persecution," the group added.

It said that entire families were reported to have been arrested and deported by Iran's "Disciplinary Forces" in southern Tehran and put in camps near the city before being taken by bus over the border to the Nimruz region of western Afghanistan.

Amnesty International said the expulsions were being carried out despite an agreement in February with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) allowing refugees without proper documents six months to come forward and either apply to return home or make a case for remaining in Iran.

The report followed a similar charge made last week by the UNHCR accusing Iran of forcibly deporting Afghan refugees.

But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hamidreza Asefi called the reports "baseless rumours".

"Despite the lack of cooperation of international agencies, Iran has been taking the most number of Afghan refugees since the beginning of the crisis in Afghanistan with open arms. We have accommodated them," Iranian television quoted Asefi as saying.

"It is regrettable to see that some organisations spread such baseless rumours," Asefi added.

The Iranian parliament in November voted to expel hundreds of thousands of foreign refugees working illegally in the country to ease unemployment in Iran.

Around two million refugees, mostly Afghans, live in Iran and many of them work illegally.-Reuters