Afghans in Iran: the state and the working of immigration policies

ABSTRACT

Since its founding in 1979, the Islamic Republic has received one of the largest Afghan refugee/migrant populations of any country. The Iranian state first pursued an open-door immigration policy, but after a decade, it changed its course and turned to restriction, repatriation and expulsion. To explain Iran’s migration policies and their changes overtime, this study brings together a search for answers to two interrelated questions: first, how and why did these policies come about and second, to what degree does the state exercise control over such consequential policies. The latter question engages the concept of state, its capacities and limitations, and its relations with society. Iran’s immigration history, which includes policies and their outcomes, provides a fertile context for this consideration, and conversely the question of the state’s control leads to a better understanding of the changing Iranian immigration policies themselves.

Introduction

For the last four decades, Iran has been the recipient of one of the largest refugee and migrant populations of any country, the overwhelming majority of which are Afghans.¹ Starting with an open-door approach in the 1980s, the Islamic Republic has since moved towards the policy of closing borders, repatriation of refugees and expulsion of the undocumented.² Numerous studies have addressed the condition of migrants during these periods, illuminating their everyday lives. Some such studies, as we will see later, have also highlighted the agency of Afghans in affecting policy processes as they negotiate their way through the use of legal and extra-legal means.³ Studies with a focus on questions such as: what explain these policies and who is involved in making and implementing them, however, have been scant.⁴ By shedding light on such questions, this paper intends to add not only to the knowledge of migration policies in Iran and their making but also to a better understanding of the limits of the state’s powers to determine such policies on its own.

The dominant literature on the Pahlavi period treated the Iranian state as an autonomous and authoritarian policy maker, situated above a passive/restive society.⁵ The millions strong 1979 revolution, however, forced scholars to address the impact of political mobilization of the society on state–society relations. To some scholars, attending to this post-revolution dynamic did not require abandoning the idea of the state as the only real decider. Clientelism, neo-patrimonialism, and authoritarian populism provided the appropriate analytical frameworks for demonstrating how the state manages and manipulates society’s political activism.⁶ Implied in these studies was the idea that genuine and independent societal agency can be expressed only through revolutionary resistance.

In time and in tandem with the general literature on state,⁷ studies emerged in Iran that attended to both disaggregated practices of state and the agency of non-state actors in affecting policies. Anthropologists and sociologists played a crucial role in shifting the gaze. Asef Bayat, for example, addressed the micro-level and quiet political activities of ordinary people in affecting/patterning policies.⁸ Arang Keshavarzian highlighted the independent political order generated from non-state organizations.⁹ Other scholars including Kevan Harris and Maziyar Ghiabi shed light on the multi-layered practices of state and its interpenetration with society, challenging the established state-centred approach.¹⁰ This literature does not eradicate the need for state-centred approach but offers new perspectives on politics and political agency, relying no less on empirically rich case studies. The present article contributes to this literature by focusing on Iran’s migration policies.

As a transnational phenomenon, migration, particularly forced mass migration, involves transnational actors such as international relief and humanitarian organizations and smuggling networks. Together, albeit in different manners, they add another layer of complexity in studying the state capacities and limitations in dealing with migrants.

In highlighting the agency of domestic and international non-state actors, however, this article does not heed the Foucauldian call for marginalization of the state as a concept.¹¹ States, the Islamic Republic included, are prominent entities with unique juridical and material power, a power that they wield through coercion as well as protection.

For this reason, the first part of this article highlights the role of the state as a distinct administrative, legal, and bureaucratic entity, separated from and situated above society, while the second turns its focus on the intra-state fragmentation and the agency of domestic and transnational non-state actors. Together all these offer concrete evidence and support for a complex picture of the practices of the state and its entangled relationship with society.

The Islamic Republic’s immigration policies: a state-centred approach

The presence of a sizable number of Afghan migrants in Iran goes back to the late 19^th century.¹² The arrival of Afghans in Iran en masse, however, was the result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Afghans fleeing the invading Soviet army were welcomed as Muslim kin and were practically granted indefinite stay in Iran. They were entitled to health care, education, food and fuel rations and opportunities for employment and investment. The overwhelming majority of them resided in city and village neighbourhoods and were permitted to find employment and buy houses. Iran pursued this open-door policy, while the country was engaged in a devastating war and without financial assistance from other nations and organizations. But why would a state under such circumstances adopt an open-door policy? From the highest office in the land, the Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, was involved. In his speeches, including the one to the Revolutionary Guards, he advised his audience that it was their religious duty to open their arms and provide for the displaced Afghans.¹³ Related to Islamic hospitality but explicitly political in nature was the intent of an influential segment of the post-revolution leaders to disturb the dominant international order and alliances by spreading the revolutionary momentum and redefining Iran as an entity with looser boundaries representing the interests of all downtrodden Muslims. The open-door migration policy fits that particular revolutionary raison d’état goal.

But the passing of Khomeini (1989), the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war (1988) and the election of the pragmatic Hashemi Rafsanjani to the presidency (1989) brought gradual changes to the migration policy of the state. The new administration saw the survival of Iran to be dependent upon reconstruction of the war-ravaged country with defined borders. At the same time, the government chose a neo-liberal path and attempted a series of structural adjustments, including privatization of a sizable part of the economy and adoption of market-oriented measures to attract foreign investments. While the idea of Iran as a territorial nation state pushed for a more restrictive migration policy, the neo-liberal economic approach with its need for cheap labour, something that many vulnerable migrants could provide, pushed against it. The result was the end of the open-door policy without drastic expulsion/repatriation plans. A bureaucratic structure, the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs (BAFIA), which was set up in 1989, facilitated this new path.

Unable to fulfill his economic goals, Rafsanjani abandoned the privatization approach by the end of his first term, opening the door to a more restrictive immigration approach. The entrance of a large number of both Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Kurds throughout the 1990s put further stress on the capacity of the state to absorb migrants, and added another reason for ending the open-door policy. The tangible shift started in December 1992, with the signing of a tripartite repatriation agreement with the Afghan government and the UNHCR, resulting in the repatriation of up to 600,000 migrants in 1993.¹⁴ The timing of this agreement had much to do with major changes in Afghanistan. The weak communist government, put in place by the Soviet army since their 1989 departure, was toppled in April 1992 by a coalition of anti-communist forces. In Iran’s view, some of the returnees with sympathetic view of Iran would have influence in shaping the new Afghan political system and would reduce the danger to Iran’s security from the east.

In conjunction with this agreement Rafsanjani’s administration put in place a set of measures to limit the number of refugees. They included halting the prima facie registration of newly arrived migrants as refugees, withdrawing many of the early generous social services, putting restrictions on categories of permitted jobs, and pursuing a policy of repatriation. In the same decade, the parliament passed legislation barring undocumented migrant children from attending state-run schools.¹⁵

The virulently anti-Shia Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan had occasioned another mass influx of asylum seekers into Iran during the 1990s. Hence, its collapse in 2001 along with Iran’s dwindling absorption capacity in the face of high unemployment occasioned yet another push for repatriation by Mohammad Khatami’s administration (1997–2005) through a second tripartite agreement in 2002.¹⁶ Soon after, the central government issued a document, “The Regulation for Accelerating the Pace of Afghans Repatriation,’ that spelled out guidelines for regularizing and speeding up the process.¹⁷ The declaration was significant in signalling the government intent to intensify its restriction through securitization of immigration. It involved tightening control of eastern borders, adopting broader and more intensive methods of discovery and punishment of human trafficking gangs and their supportive infrastructure, implementing more rigorously restrictive migrant labour laws, and actively broadcasting these measures through national media. Parts of such a hardening of immigration policy were due to the rapid increase in drug trafficking from Afghanistan, an activity that the Iranian state construed as a grave threat to Iran’s national security. By far the world’s largest opium producer, Afghanistan’s share of global opium production rose from 42% in 1990 to 87% in 2005.¹⁸ According to the data gathered by UN Office on Drug and Crime, 61% of Afghan opiates were destined for Iran while Pakistan and Central Asia received another 20% and 19%, respectively.¹⁹

Iran adopted some measures that affected the refugee segments of Afghan migrant community specifically. In accord with the above-mentioned document, the state replaced the blue cards (which in 1980 had entitled refugees to indefinite stay) with amayesh, a temporary but renewable residence card. Even though registering refugees and regularizing the legalization process could have in theory eliminated some of the arbitrariness in the way they were treated, the cumbersome bureaucratic requirements and fees created serious hardship. Moreover, the government curtailed the freedom of movement for refugees by requiring them to obtain a travel permit to cross the borders of their designated province of residence. In 2004, through a labour regulation, the administration restricted most Afghan refugees to four menial low-level occupational categories.²⁰ Only a minority of Afghans who possessed official Afghan passports and valid visas were exempted from this restriction. This measure was directly related to the fact that a significant portion of unemployed Iranians in this period were highly educated young people uninterested in filling menial jobs.²¹ Limiting Afghans to low-skilled, low-paid jobs would not have had a serious negative effect on this segment of unemployed Iranians, while it would have satisfied employers in perpetual search for cheap labour, offered more readily by the most vulnerable migrants.

Even though many of these policies were adopted during Khatami’s presidency (1997–2005), the severity of restrictive measures markedly increased under the populist administration of Ahmadinejad (2005–2013). In 2007, the government deported around 100,000 Afghans²² and banned non-citizens, particularly Afghans, from certain provinces and cities, a measure adopted by more and more regions in later years.²³ Meanwhile, the administration successfully opposed the efforts of some lawmakers to provide citizenship for children of Iranian mothers and Afghan fathers.²⁴ Ahmadinejad’s administration took additional restrictive security measures by tightening border controls in the eastern part of the country²⁵ and setting up detention camps to regulate, register, and control migrants. Armed with the technology of biometric identification, the government put into effect a more intrusive migration surveillance system. These measures were accompanied with periods of actual or threats of mass repatriation/deportation.

The timing of the massive expulsion in 2007 and the threat of this again in 2012, coincided with the increasingly tough international reactions to Iran’s nuclear programme. In March 2007, the United Nations Security Council passed another sanction resolution against Iran, followed in April by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s warning about Iran’s progress in nuclear technology. The increased tension heightened the concern in Iran about a possible US attack being launched from the nearby strategic airfield of Shindand in western Afghanistan. Therefore, when Iran intensified deportation of Afghan in 2007, many suspected that Iran was using Afghan migrants as a tool to put pressure on the Afghan government to oppose the use of the airfield for an attack by the US on Iran or to create disturbances in that part of Afghanistan to complicate any preparations for such an attack.²⁶ The threat by the Ahmadinejad administration in 2012 to expel Afghan migrants was linked to the prospect of a military agreement between the US and Afghanistan.²⁷

With the election of Hasan Rouhani to the presidency in 2013, the government postponed some of the earlier and harsher policies, first by granting a six-month visa to 450,000 Afghans who had previously been targeted for deportation.²⁸ More importantly, in 2015 the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, issued a ruling that entitled all Afghani children, whether documented or not, to an education. Soon thereafter the government established a new social security office to assist documented migrants with health insurance and social security. Moreover, BAFIA adopted a friendlier re-entry policy accommodating resident Afghans who wished to go to their home country for a visit.²⁹ Eventually, the advocates for granting citizenship to children of mixed marriages, when the mother was Iranian realize their goal in the fall of 2019. Already in 2016 the families of Afghan fighters in Syria had been granted Iranian citizenship.

These developments were in line with a larger strategy by the new government to reverse the trend of Iran’s increasing international isolation which was accompanied by draconian international sanctions. Like Rafsanjani, Rouhani saw Iran’s national interest in opening the economy to foreign investments, hoping thereby to control both inflation and unemployment. Such prospects seemed within reach with the conclusion of a nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Unfortunately for the government, not all went according to plan. Despite some success in controlling inflation during Rouhani’s first term, unemployment stayed high and foreign investment, due to both internal and external factors, never materialized. Most damaging for Iran’s economic growth was the decision by the US President, Donald Trump, to withdraw from the nuclear agreement and impose severe primary and secondary sanctions. The threat of secondary sanctions, which would punish companies outside the US if they engaged in business with Iran, led giant foreign companies such as the French-based oil company, Total; the German headquartered manufacturing company, Siemens; and the Chinese-owned petrochemical conglomerate Sinopec to revoke their contracts, or sharply curtail their activities. In the end, the dream of Rouhani’ economic team failed, inflation and unemployment rose, and migration policies shifted back towards repatriation.

Even though the government did not make any major effort to resettle the refugees in a third country, the language of resettlement, as well as of deportation appeared in the discourse of some government officials. The deteriorating economic situation in Iran made the lack of burden-sharing significant grounds for Iran’s complaints.³⁰ With some ebb and flow restrictions on Afghans once again became the dominant part of state migration policy.³¹ A big push towards this came after the widespread December 2019 protests which, unlike most earlier ones, were driven by economic factors. Two other developments contributed to the increasing numbers of the repatriated/expelled. One was the steady and dramatic devaluation of Iran’s currency. Many Afghan workers, particularly younger and mostly single males, who would send a big part of their income home, decided that Iran’s currency depreciation no longer made separation from their families worthwhile, and went back to Afghanistan.³² The other development was Iran’s COVID-related economic and health challenges since the early months of 2020 that intensified both voluntary and forced return of migrants back home. But following the return of Taliban to power in August 2021, Iran experienced another influx of displaced migrants. After a brief official silence, the head of BAFIA soon announced that due to the country’s economic challenges Iran would not accept any new refugees.³³ As of this writing, the policy of strict restrictions through intensified deportation is the dominant approach of the Islamic Republic.³⁴

As one would expect, the central government played a key role and wielded a great deal of power in making Iran’s migration policies. Together with humanitarian concerns and inevitably in competition with them, the state weighed the impact of the migrant population against domestic and international factors that would affect its own survival as well as national interest. However, the accounts of migration policy processes remain incomplete without attending to the dynamic of inter-state institutional and ideological competition, centre-local tension, and finally the practices of domestic and transnational non-state actors.

The disaggregated state and migration policies

Institutional changes, ideological developments, and factional competition that have defined and redefined the post-revolution state, its power, and its outer boundaries, have also impacted the migration policy processes. The state that came out of the womb of the revolution had multi-level fractures. From the very beginning there were individuals and groups within the power structure who wished to put an end to the revolutionary fervour and stabilize the state in keeping with the norms of international system.³⁵ In addition to the differences among individual members of the political elite, there was institutional fragmentation where the bureaucratic set up of the previous regime, and the newly created revolutionary organizations competed and commingled. As Kevin Harris elaborates, the welfare organizations inherited from the ancient regime were relatively corporatist and exclusionary, while the newly formed and parallel institutions tended to be inclusionary.³⁶ The new institutions, especially the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, took care of the social needs of both underprivileged Iranians and refugees.³⁷ In addition to these welfare institutions, the Vahed-e Jonbesha-ye Azidi-bakhsh (the Unit of Liberation Movements or ULM), which had a strong revolutionary outlook, played a central role in dealing with a particular segment of Afghan refugees, those who were suitable for and willing to engage in battles. The role of ULM gave the policy a definite political/security colouring.

A predecessor to the Quds Force, the ULM was an organization within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) with the purpose of aiding liberation movements in the region. The ULM was the brainchild of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri’s oldest son, Mohammad, whose dream was to unify all the oppressed Muslims in the Middle East.³⁸ Even though his life was cut short, the ULM continued to operate under the leadership of his protégé, Mehdi Hashemi. The ULM trained a cadre of military and religious Shia Afghan leaders not only to fight the Soviets but to carve out a political space in a post-Soviet Afghanistan. In the end, however, due to the ongoing factional competition both in Iran and among the Shii Afghan groups, the ULM plans came to a halt. It is worth mentioning that many of these fighters, fought for Iran during the 1980s Iran–Iraq war.

Due to its fragmented nature, the state in its first decade had neither a systematic program nor a legal and institutional framework for migration policy making. Several developments in the following decade, however, heralded a new, centralized and bureaucratically oriented migration discourse and practice. One was the victory of the more pragmatic elements and their realization that the institutionalization of the state is a necessary step for reconstruction of the war-ravaged country. Another factor was the end of charismatic leadership with the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the pro-open-door migration policy.

The creation of the Bureau of Aliens and Foreign Immigrant Affairs (BAFIA) in 1989 was the first practical step towards institutionalization of migration policy. As the implementing arm of the state, BAFIA, with more than dozen local branches, was in charge of centralizing, routinizing, and stabilizing the affairs of refugees and other non-citizens. The centralization of the policy formulating apparatus came a year later with the formation of a new council, the ‘Executive Council for Coordinating Foreign Citizens’ whose members consisted of several cabinet ministers, including Interior, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Education, Labour and Welfare, Health, as well as the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the head of the police, and the director of the Iranian Red Cross.³⁹ BAFIA too had representatives from these organizations but itself was under the control of the security division of the Interior Ministry.

On the surface, such a structure signals a top-down flow of policy with a clear distinction between its formulating and implementing institutions. However, the large number of state institutions and organizations, having distinct and at times conflicting interests, became a problem and remains so to this day.⁴⁰ For example, in 2020 in the midst of the COVID 19 crisis, the Tehran provincial governor and the director of the city’s welfare organization of Tehran both declared that several hundred Afghan child labourers had been rounded up, ready to be deported. Their statements were soon contradicted by the deputy of the Social Affairs section of the National Welfare Organization who stated that his organization had no intention to follow such a policy.⁴¹ The lack of a formal labour policy governing non-citizen children no doubt contributed to the conflicting statements in this case, but in general, the fragmented way refugee decisions were and are still being made and executed have numerous causes, one of which is the existence of multiple centres of power within the state.

The law granting citizenship to families of foreign nationals killed fighting on the side of Iran in 2016 is a case in point. IRGC was the primary force pushing for the passage of the law. Since 2014 as Iran became more involved in the Syrian civil war, the Quds Force, a branch of the IRGC in charge of foreign operations, actively promoted the formation of a military unit, called the Fatemyoun Brigade, for duty in Syria. Most of the conscripted fighters were undocumented Afghan migrants joined the brigade faced with the Qods’ promises of cash and citizenship against a threat of deportation. This operation was under the control of the Quds Force with no input from BAFIA.⁴² An implicit sign of lack of consensus on this matter was its treatment by the media. The support for granting citizenship came predominantly from the IRGC’s affiliated media such as Tasnim while most governmental outlets remained silent.⁴³ But the multiplicity of centres of power in this case is best revealed by looking at the different approaches of the IRGC and the Quds Force, on the one hand, and Rouhani’s administration, on the other. As revealed in a leaked interview, Javad Zarif, Rouhani’s foreign minister, addressed his differences with Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, over Syria and the policy of military intervention at the expense of diplomacy.⁴⁴

These examples point at divisions only at the highest level. There are further signs of multiplicity in the state, starting with the local branches of BAFIA. By virtue of their proximity to the local conditions, the directors of these branches provide not only information but advice to the centre by way of proposing new regulations or suggesting changes to the existing ones. But their advice is based on their local experiences and interests rather than ‘national interest’, the supposed concern of the centre. For example, in 2007 the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic passed a bylaw that made some cities and provinces ‘no-go-zones’ to foreign nationals.⁴⁵ The rationale was to preserve national security and territorial integrity from the threat of terrorism and armed attacks. Therefore, the prohibited provinces were predominantly in border areas. But since then a large number of directors of local BAFIA branches along with other officials in non-border provinces decided independently to make their locales part of this scheme by defining security in much broader, including economic, terms.⁴⁶

The regulations set by central or local BAFIA officials are carried out by the ‘street-level bureaucrats’ consisting of local law-enforcement officials, health care providers, school principals and teachers who are in direct and routine interaction with the migrants.⁴⁷ By virtue of such connections, these street-level bureaucrats, though subject to regulations set by people above them, enjoy some discretionary power. Many, as shown in a 2006 study by Taherpoor et al., develop a more positive view of migrants than higher-up officials who have little or no contact with migrants.⁴⁸ This study does not go beyond gauging attitudes, but others do. In her 2007 study, Diane Tober tells us the story of a health care worker who goes against the legal prohibition and provides treatment for illegal Afghans.⁴⁹ But not all cases corroborate the statistics provided by of Taherpoor’s findings. There are indeed other street-level bureaucrats who do create unnecessary hardship and obstacles for migrants by going beyond restrictive policies or against the regulations that had been adopted for easing migrants’ burdens. For instance, after an edict by the Supreme Leader ordering educational provision for Afghan children regardless of their legal status, several schools still refused to allow them to enrol or created bureaucratic and financial hurdles deterring them.⁵⁰ In either case, street-level bureaucrats made their own rules in contravention of superior authority.

Not a part of state but in a semi-symbiotic relationship with it, are some NGOs and dafatir-i kifalat (sponsorship bureaus). Recent studies of NGOs speak to the symbiotic relationship between these organizations and governments, even in authoritarian states.⁵¹ In Iran there are legal provisions for such a relationship, but they fall short in practice.⁵² According to the law state could outsource to NGOs some of its social responsibilities and thus occasion a degree of state-society interdependence. There are very few non-governmental organizations that focus on migrants, but some Afghan migrants have benefited from social services provision that other NGOs provide for the vulnerable segments of society. This is particularly true of organizations whose focus is on children and women.⁵³ The government provides some of the budget of many such NGOs and in return expect them to follow the directives of the state. One might assume that under the circumstances of limited resources of their own, together with bureaucratic impediments and authoritarian restrictions placed on civil society organizations generally that NGOs would abide by the rules to provide only those services that the state allowed. This, however, is not what some NGOs have done. In their study on the integration of Afghan migrants in a Tehran neighbourhood, for example, Pooya Alaedini and Ameneh Mirzayi reveal how NGOs provide services not only to documented migrants but also to the undocumented in need, thereby violating official policy. Notably, these services are aimed to facilitate integration of migrants into local communities.⁵⁴ More importantly, and as we see later, through working relationship with UNHRC and long-term partnership with BAFIA, the migrant-focused Anjoman-e Hemayat az Zanan va Koudakan-e Panahandeh known as HAMI has had direct impact on state migration policies.

Sponsorship bureaus constitute another set of private organizations that reveal state and non-state policy interpenetration. In 2012, the state decided to downsize BAFIA by outsourcing some of its administrative functions to these bureaus in areas such as employment, residency, education, and marriage. By 2017 there were 165 of such bureaus most of them in big cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, and Mashhad.⁵⁵ The Taliban’s victory in 2021 led to another big surge in the number of migrants and with that came a further expansion of the bureaus’ domain of state-delegated responsibility and control.⁵⁶

Migration policies and non-state actors

Migrant communities

Afghan migrants show their agency through both legal and extra-legal means. In 1997, the government decided to deny undocumented Afghan children the right to attend schools. In response, Afghan migrants themselves gradually established hundreds of informal schools with some help from Iranian pro-migrant groups such as HAMI. As Homa Hoodfar’s ethnographic studies show, Afghan women were the leading force behind these initiatives.⁵⁷ Together they managed to provide education for thousands of children despite inadequate resources and policy obstacles. As governmental restrictions on migrants intensified, so did the efforts of such educational outlets. In time they expanded the learning possibilities for Afghan youth of all ages by offering training in fields such as computer science and English, thereby qualifying many migrants for high-level jobs.⁵⁸ Born and raised in Iran and armed with up-to-date skills many of these children could expand not only the economy, but the social and cultural spaces of influence for the migrants.

In her book The Pearl of Dari Suzanna Olszewska speaks of the founders of a literary society, “Mu’assisih-yi Durr-i Dari, in Mashhad Afghan poets and writers who have carved a stable position for themselves in Iranian society.⁵⁹ The literary society is a good case for showing how Afghan communities use their position for the purpose of influencing policy makers through social relations. Even though the primary activity of the society is literary, some prominent members have used their fame to communicate also the plight of other Afghans to Iranian leaders.⁶⁰ There are also Afghan university students in a few Iranian cities who have attempted to create communities to give voice to their concerns through events and publication.

International and trans-state organizations and entities

Legal means for Afghan migrants to affect change in the rules governing them are limited, but as a transnational phenomenon they might have access to other means. Shahin Gerami’s ethnographic study demonstrates how some well-integrated Afghan refugees have challenged the government’s attempt to repatriate by using extralegal channels or networks of family and friends both in Iran and Afghanistan to navigate through the migration system.⁶¹ The importance of family and friend networks and to a lesser degree Iranian neighbours, to provide services, financial help, and information to migrants is also documented in ethnographic studies of Abbasi-Shavazi and his collaborators.⁶²

Of particular importance in impacting restrictive policies is human smuggling. Iran’s long and porous borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan are considered a challenge by the state but open up opportunities for smugglers.⁶³ Despite Iran’s construction of a 15 feet concrete wall in the 2000s separating the country from Nimruz, Afghanistan’s smuggling hub, and the erection of a similar barrier by Pakistan at its border with Iran, illegal cross-border movements have not been halted. Smuggling from Afghanistan to Iran involves a complex mix of both cross-border familial social relations and for-profit enterprise. It consists of a chain of operators, starting with the ones with communal ties to the migrants-to-be, followed by those with little or no such ties in the middle of the journey. But once again at the end of these risky travels, familial loyalties come into play as relatives who reside in Iran cover a part of the smuggling cost.⁶⁴ The efficacy of smugglers in thwarting state’s goal to restrict and reduce the number of Afghan migrants can be shown through some data. As mentioned above, during Ahmadinejad’s presidency (2005–2013) hundreds of thousands of migrants were expelled or repatriated. However, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs the number of migrants living in Iran in 2005 and 2019 were 2,568,900 and 2,682,200, respectively.⁶⁵ What enhanced the importance of smugglers in this period was the connections they established with some state’s agents including the border security guards, through bribes.⁶⁶

Beyond the impact of smuggling networks is the influence of international organizations whose specific charge concerns migrant population. Due to the presence of very large number of refugees in Iran, UNHCR has become the most visible migrant-related international organization in the country. UNHRC’s mandate is to protect refugees and to promote lasting solutions to their problems by providing financial, technical, legal, and other organizational support by partnering with the involved states and non-state organizations. Even though these capacities open possibilities for UNHCR to influence states, in the case of Iran and for varied reasons, including lack of adequate international funding, such influences have been modest.⁶⁷ Still, through its working with domestic NGOs and several governmental institutions including BAFIA, UNHCR has provided not only crucial aid in areas of education and health but legal advice and technical expertise for the state in important matters including repatriation and resettlement.⁶⁸ Such resources have enabled this international organization to insert itself into the migration affairs of the state in a manner scarcely available to most domestic non-state actors.

Iranian communities: protagonists and antagonists

In local communities, attitude regarding the migrants run a spectrum from empathy and solidarity to indifference and disdain.⁶⁹ For example, sympathetic social activists have used blogs and Facebook pages to raise awareness of injustice towards migrants, particularly during times when discrimination against Afghans were on the rise. When some local authorities in Isfahan undertook to ban Afghans from entering a public park during sizdah bidar, two Facebook pages, both called ‘we are all Afghans’, appeared on social media and attracted many followers.⁷⁰ On another occasion, famous directors and actors travelled to Mazandaran province to protest against the decision to make the province a ‘no-go-zone’.⁷¹ Earlier, in 2007, over 200 intellectuals and writers signed a statement protesting against Ahmadinejad’s mass expulsion. Such actions undoubtedly bring attention, for the most part sympathetic, to the plight of migrants.

There are, however, many locals whose anti-migrant feelings on occasion have led to violence against Afghans. In 2014 in a rural town in Qazvin Province a group of masked residents attacked Afghan homes after rumours were spread that a man who had raped a mentally challenged girl was an Afghan national. In fear, 125 out of 140 Afghan households fled the town never to come back, making the town a virtual ‘no-go-zone’.⁷² In another incident in the city of Yazd, when police arrested two Afghans for raping and killing a girl, vigilante groups attacked and set on fire some migrant residences. Though infrequent and condemned by other locals, as well as non-locals, such events have forced out resident migrants from their homes if not the country. Forcing migrants to contemplate returning to Afghanistan might be in line with governmental repatriation/expulsion decisions but the government is wary of vigilantism, which by its very nature intervenes with the state control over the domain of law and order.

Non-State Organizations

While small-scale vigilantism is spontaneous with little systematic means to impact policies, the actions of organized groups, such as labour unions and business organizations, could exercise a steady influence on society and provide another example of the intrusion into state authority by external actors.

Predictably, most private business owners support a more lenient approach to migration, allowing greater availability of cheap labour. The Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture or ICCIMA, with headquarters in Tehran and 34 regional branches, is the most visible business organization. Despite the factional make-up and political differences within the organization, the members of ICCIMA agree on two central goals: expansion of the free market and integration into the globalized economy,⁷³ both of which focus on profit-making and depend on beneficial capital-labour relations. Due to their interest in cheap labour, which many vulnerable and undocumented migrants would provide, the owners of businesses do not blame high unemployment on Afghans, but on unemployed and highly educated Iranians for shying away from the most menial jobs. They also make a case against the expelling the Afghan labour force by warning that a higher cost of production and hence higher rate of inflation would follow such an expulsion.⁷⁴ More important than publicizing views through the media, is ICCIMA representation in governmental organizations such as the High Council of Labour. There they participate in formulating labour policies, including employment of foreign nationals.⁷⁵

Since the 1990s, an increasing number of labour laws have been enacted, including restricting unionization that have drastically diminished the bargaining power of labour.⁷⁶ The only nation-wide labour organization with over one and a half million members and some formal bargaining power is Khanih-yi Kargar.⁷⁷ Khanih-yi Kargar, however, is viewed suspiciously by many underprivileged worker groups, and its leaders are accused of being co-opted by the Islamic Republic. Co-opted or not, high officials of this labour union have access to the state in various ways including membership in the Parliament, through which they have exerted some pressure on the government. In his position as a parliamentarian, Alireza Mahjoob, the current head of the union, either initiated policies or participated in pushing the state to adopt policies to restrict foreign (Afghan) labour.⁷⁸ In addition to its penetration into formal state’s institutions, Khanih-yi Kargar has also campaigned publicly to win public support for its demands.⁷⁹

On the whole, official policies over the years have favoured Iranian workers by increasing restrictions on non-Iranian labour. Many critics, including several members of parliament, however, have accused the government, and specifically the Interior Ministry, of taking a half-hearted and haphazard approach to the deportation of undocumented migrants, and implying that the government privileges the interest of business over labour.⁸⁰ Although the influence of business owners was a significant factor in limiting some deportations, the inconsistencies of the government’s policies reflect competing interests among regions and between the state and society.

Conclusion

Since the late 1970s Iran has taken in the second-largest Afghan migrant population of any country. During this period, the state moved from an open-door policy on migration to one based on restriction, repatriation and expulsion. An explanation for the policy and its revisions requires consideration about the nature of the state and the limits of its control over such policies. One cannot ignore the power of the Iranian state in many areas, such as the nuclear program, engagement in the Syrian civil war, or the support for the Houthi in Yemen, where the central state has acted autonomously and without effective interference from within civil society. However, the question of whether such cases of governmental autonomy carry over to all state policies, such as those affecting migration, has been the focus of the present study.

Where immigration is concerned, the rule-making authority of the central state is plainly visible but in practice we see interference with the working of the state as a unified entity, revealed by layers of intra-state fragmentation. There are also transnational forces that affect the ostensible intentions of state policies. The UNHCR with its international mandate to protect refugees or the ‘under the bridge’ network of smugglers, skilled in finding ways to facilitate the entry of the undocumented migrants, are two such entities. Among the parties interfering with state’s control over migration policies, are societal forces including groups of migrants themselves. The agency of social actors appears at times in cooperation with the state but more often in defiance of it. It is worth emphasizing that these acts are neither managed or manipulated by the state nor always suppressed by it.

This immigration case study reveals a web of interactions among multiple actors pointing out the complexity in state’s ability to control policy processes. Understanding this complexity has required a study of specific situations and facts, an empirical process. Yet the accumulation of similar case studies is what can provide substance to the construction of theory about the state itself.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ According to the latest United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) published in 2022 over three million Afghan citizens live in Iran. 780,000 of these migrants have refugee status, 600,000 are Afghan passport holders and the rest, estimated to be 2.1 million, are undocumented. See: https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/irn

² In a 2000 Third Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan’s report, foreign nationals were divided into groups of panahandih (refugee), avarih (asylum seeker/undocumented migrant), muhajir (foreigner with residency rights), and foreign nationals with proper documentation/passports. Even though there is a legal difference between refugee and other forced migrants, in the everyday lives of Afghans in Iran such differentiation hides the shared precarity of both. See, David Scot FitzGerald and Rawan Arar, ‘The Sociology of Refugee Migration.’ in https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041204

³ See Fariba Adelkhah and Suzanna Olszewska, 2007. ‘The Iranian Afghans’. Iranian Studies 40 (2): 137–165, Shahin Gerami. 2008. ‘Extralegal Practices of Afghans in Iran: Exploring Feminist Transnationalism and immigration Theories’. Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought, 3 (1): 1–21, Ali Yusefi and el, 2013. ‘The Social Networks of Afghan Migrants of Mashhad: The Case of Afghan Residents in Golshahr’. Iran’s Social Problems. 4 (1): 213–239, and Mohammad Abbasi-Shavazi and el. May 2005 (68 pages) and Oct. 2005 (64) ‘Return to Afghanistan: A Study of Afghans Living in Tehran and ‘Return to Afghanistan: A Study of Afghans Living in Zahedan’. Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.

⁴ One of the few State-centred accounts on migration policy is Bahram Rajaee. 2000. ‘The Politics of refugee in Post-Revolutionary Iran’. The Middle East Journal, 54 (1): 44–63.

⁵ For the historiography of state-centred literature on Iran see, Cyrus Schayegh. 2010. ‘“Seeing Like State”: An Essay on the Historiography of Modern Iran’. International Journal of Middle East Studies (42): 37–61.

⁶ For a sample of this literature see, Ervand Abrahamian. 1993. Essays on Khomeinism. Oakland: University of California Press, Kazem Alamdari. 2005. ‘The Power Structure of Islamic Republic of Iran: Transition from Populism to Clientelism and Militarization of Government’. Third World Quarterly. 26 (8): 1285–1301, Said Amir Arjomand. 2009. After Khomeini: Iran under His Successors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, and Kian Tajbakhsh. 2020. ‘Authoritarian state building through political decentralization and local government law: Evidence from the Islamic Republic of Iran’. Onati Socio-Legal Series. 10 (5): 1040–1074.

⁷ Examples of this general literature on state include: Timothy Mitchell. 1991. ‘The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics’. The American Science Review 85 (1): 77–96; and Kimberly Morgan and Ann Shola Orloff, ed. 2017. The Many Hands of the State. New York: Cambridge University Press.

⁸ Asef Bayat. 1997. Street Politics: Poor People’s Movement in Iran. New York: Columbia University Press.

⁹ Arang Keshavarzian. 2007. Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

¹⁰ Kevan Harris. 2017. A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Oakland: University of California Press, and Maziyar Ghiabi. 2018. ‘Maintaining Disorder: The Micropolitics of Drug Policy in Iran”. Third World Quarterly 39 (2): 277–297.

¹¹ For a discussion of this literature see Steve Sawyer. 2015. ‘Foucault and the State’. The Tocqueville Review 36 (1): 135–164.

¹² ‘Afghan Immigrants in Persia,’ Encyclopaedia Iranica, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/diaspora#pt10

¹³ For excerpts of Khomeini’s speeches about Afghan migrants, one to the IRGC and the other to the Bazaar merchants, see: https://avapress.com/fa/61843/امام-خمینی-ره-و-افغانستان

¹⁴ See Shirin Hakimzadeh, ‘Afghan and Iraqi Refugees’. 2006. Migration Policy Institute, in https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/iran-vast-diaspora-abroad-and-millions-refugees-home

¹⁵ Graeme Hugo, Mohammad Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi and Rasoul Sadeghi, 2012 ‘Refugee Movement and Development: Afghan Refugees in Iran’. Migration and Development, 1 (2): 268.

¹⁶ Deportation of migrants, including some documented refugees, was a practice in the 1990s. see Bill Frelick. June 1999. ‘Refugees in Iran: Who Should Go? Who Should Stay’? Refugee Reports, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

¹⁷ See the text of the document in http://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/125429

¹⁸ Doris Buddenberg and William Byrd. 2006. Afghanistan Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy. The book is sponsored by World Bank and UN Office on Drugs and Crime, jointly.

¹⁹ Buddenberg and Byrd, Op. Cit, p. 179.

²⁰ https://avapress.com/fa/news/97794/توضیحات-مدیرکل-اتباع-خارجی-وزارت-کار-ایران-درباره-محدودیت-شغلی-مهاجرین-افغانستانی

²¹ Djavad Salehi-Isfahani. 2011. ‘Iranian Youth in Times of Economic Crisis’. Iranian Studies. 44 (6): 789–806.

²² See the report by Human Rights Watch regarding this deportation in https://www.hrw.org/news/2007/06/19/iran-halt-mass-deportation-afghans#

²³ Farshid Farzin and Safinaz Jadali. Sept. 2013. ‘Freedom of Movement of Afghan Refugees in Iran’. Forced Migration Review. https://www.fmreview.org/detention/farzin-jadali

²⁴ Shadi Sadr. 1386. ‘Demanding Matrimonial Citizenship: A Look at The Official Policies Regarding Marriage of Iranian Women with Afghan Men’. Guftigu. (50): 61–82.

²⁵ The daily Etemad, 20 Mihr, 1390, p. 12

²⁶ https://www.rferl.org/a/1076391.html

²⁷ Alireza Nader et al, 2014. Iran’s Influence in Afghanistan: Implications for the U.S. Drawdown, Rand Corporation: 21–22.

²⁸ https://www.hrw.org/fa/news/2014/12/21/265724

²⁹ See https://www.irna.ir/news/83001377/طرح-خروج-و-مراجعت-اتباع-افغانستانی-در-خراسان-رضوی-اجرایی-شد

³⁰ For the amount of outside contribution see, http://reporting.unhcr.org/node/2527

³¹ For 2019 statistics on deportation see https://afghanistan.iom.int/sites/default/files/Reports/iom_afghanistan-return_of_undocumented_afghans-_situation_report_10_-_16_feb_2019.pdf

³² https://www.bbc.com/persian/afghanistan-45008250

³³ https://www.aa.com.tr/fa/ایران/ایران-سیاست-پذیرش-پناهنده-جدید-نداریم/2377707

³⁴ According to UNHRC’s estimates, 65% of the 500,000–1,000,000 Afghans who fled to Iran were expelled. See, https://data.unhcr.org/en/country/irn

³⁵ R.K. Ramazani, 1989 ‘Iran’s Foreign Policy: Contending Orientations’. Middle East Journal, (92) Spring: 202–217

³⁶ Kevan Harris, 2017. See in particular chapters 3 and 4.

³⁷ Eventually, the enormity of number of refugees led to the formation of the Refugee Foundation to address, exclusively, the needs of displaced Afghans.

³⁸ For more information on ULM see Siavoshi, Sussan. 2017. Montazeri: The Life and Thought of Revolutionary Ayatollah. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 122–129

³⁹ https://rc.majlis.ir/fa/law/show/118931?keyword=%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AA%20%D8%BA%DB%8C%D8%B1%20%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B9%DB%8C

⁴⁰ A direct reference to the problem of lack of harmony among these institutions appears in the statement by the BAFIA director of Tehran Province. https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/1022124/%D9%86%D9%82%D8%B4-%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AC%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D8%BA%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A2%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86. There are also frequent complaints made by the Majlis deputies during the parliamentary proceedings.

⁴¹ https://www.radiofarda.com/a/iran-street-kids-corona/30488685.html

⁴² https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/iran-grant-citizenship-families-foreign-martyrs-487554712

⁴³ https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/1398/05/01/2059837/تبعات-مثبت-اصلاح-قانون-تابعیت-ایران-در-مجلس

⁴⁴ See, https://www.radiofarda.com/a/iran-zarif-qassem-soleimani-attack/31222159.html

⁴⁵ Farshid Farzin and Safinaz Jadali, Op. Cit.

⁴⁶ https://www.radiofarda.com/a/f12_14_provinces_of_iran_forbidden_territory_for_afghans/24601613.html

⁴⁷ Michael Lipsky. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

⁴⁸ See Firouzeh Taherpoor, et al. 2006. ‘Comparative Study of Individual, Cognitive, and Motivational Basis of Prejudice Towards Afghan Immigrants’, Psychological Research, 8 (3&4): 9–29.

⁴⁹ Diane Tober. 2007 ‘‘My Body Is Broken Like My Country’: Identity, Nation, and Repatriation among Afghan Refugees in Iran’. Iranian Studies. 40 (2): 269.

⁵⁰ https://en.radiozamaneh.com/24834/

⁵¹ For example, see the pioneering study of this kind of relationship in the case of China by AJ Spires. 2011. ‘Contingent symbiosis and Civil Society in an Authoritarian: Understanding the Survival of China’s Grassroots NGOs’. American Journal of Sociology. 117 (1): 1–45

⁵² Negar Katirai. 2005. ‘NGO Regulations in Iran’. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law. 7(4): 28–42

⁵³ Of special importance is Shabakeh Yari Koudakan Kar (The Assistance Network for Child Labour), a network of around forty NGOs.

⁵⁴ Pooya Alaedin and Ameneh Mirzayi, ‘Integration of Afghan Migrants in Tehran’s Urban regions: The Case of Harandi Neighbourhood.’ 2018 Iranian Humanities Studies 8 (1): 7–25

⁵⁵ For the breakdown of the number and locations of these bureaus see, https://www.yjc.news/fa/news/6361582/آدرس-دفاتر-کفالت-اشتغال-و-اقامت-اتباع-خارجی-سراسر-کشور

⁵⁶ https://shahraranews.ir/fa/news/108026/نگاهی-به-وضعیت-دفاتر-کفالت-مشهد-همزمان-با-آغاز-طرح-سرشماری-اتباع-افغانستانی-غیرمجاز

⁵⁷ See, Homa Hoodfar. 2007. ‘Women, Religion and the “Afghan Education Movement” in Iran’. Journal of Development Studies. 43 (2): 255–293, and Homa Hoodfar. ‘Refusing the Margins: Afghans Refugee Youth in Iran’ in Dawn Chatty, ed., 2010. Deterritorialized Youth: Sahrawi and Afghan Refugees at the Margins of the Middle East, NY: Berghahn Books: 145–182.

⁵⁸ F. Adelkhah and Z. Olszewska. 2007. ‘Iranian Afghans’ Iranian Studies, 40 (2): 145–6.

⁵⁹ S. Olszewska. 2015. The Pearl of Dari: Poetry and Personhood among Young Afghans in Iran, Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

⁶⁰ For an example of such attempts, see the speech of Mohammad Kazem Kazemi, the celebrated Afghan poet imploring Iranian high officials, who were present in a night of poetry in his honour, to be mindful of the plight of Afghan workers. https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/275730

⁶¹ Shahin Gerami. 2008. ‘Extralegal Practices of Afghans in Iran: Exploring Feminist Transnationalism and immigration Theories’. Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought, V3 (1): 8

⁶² Abassi-Shavazi, Op.Cit, May. 2005: 34–35. And Oct. 2005: 32–33

⁶³ According to the Deputy Internal Minister around 90% of undocumented Afghans enter Iran through Pakistan. See, https://www.mashreghnews.ir/news/965121

⁶⁴ Nassim Majidi, 2018. ‘Community Dimensions of Smuggling: The Case of Afghanistan and Somalia’. The Annals of the American Academy of political and Social Sciences 676:97–113, and Alessandro Monsutti, 2016. War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan, London: Routledge: 145–172.

⁶⁵ https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/countryprofiles.asp

⁶⁶ https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/world/asia/smugglers-afghanistan.html and Alessandro Monsutti, Op. Cit.

⁶⁷ The following data in two UNHCR’s links are instructive. The first indicates the lack of donation by the US, one of the largest donors to UNHCR, and the second demonstrates the huge gap between the needed budget and the amount of actual funding for the years 2015–2020. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/94043 and https://www.unhcr.org/ir/partners-and-donors/

⁶⁸ See a list of domestic and governmental institutions and NGOs that partner with UNHCR at the end of this link: https://www.unhcr.org/ir/partners-and-donors/ For UNHCR activities in Iran visit UNHRC page on Iran https://www.unhcr.org/ir/. The most comprehensive accounts of such activities are in the periodic ‘Global Reports’ on different countries. For Iran, the last one was published in 2013. See, https://www.unhcr.org/539809fb0.pdf

⁶⁹ Several studies indicate the difference in attitudes relates to a variety of factors, such as age and gender, or concerns about the economy and security, or more broadly a consideration of cultural values. For a sample of such studies, see, H.K. Qasemi and B. Naderpoor. 2018. ‘The Effects of Afghan Citizens Migration on Iranian Society: The Case of Qazvin’. Geography. 8 (3): 289–305; and M. Shaterian et al, 2016. ‘The Relationship between Cultural Values and Perceptions of Afghan Migrants: The Case of Eighteen and Older Citizens in Kashan’. Intercultural Studies, 29: 143–165.

⁷⁰ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-17954943

⁷¹ https://www.radiofarda.com/a/f12_iranian_artists_act_against_afghan_discrimination_in_iran/24564844.html

⁷² http://old.alef.ir/vdccsxqip2bq108.ala2.html?23txt

⁷³ See the site of ICCIMA http://iccima.ir/about/about-iccima/ See also, Peyman Jafari. 2013. ‘The Ambiguous Role of Entrepreneurs in Iran’, in P. Aarts an F. Cavatorta. Civil Society in Syria and Iran: Activism in Authoritarian Contexts. London: Rienner: 93–118

⁷⁴ http://ahvazccim.com/fa/news/%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C/item/3538-hn.html

⁷⁵ https://www.mcls.gov.ir/fa/kar/rahnamayemorajein/karegaran/ghanoonekar/fasle10-%D9%81%D8%B5%D9%84-%D8%AF%D9%87%D9%85-%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%B1%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%DB%8C-%DA%A9%D8%A7%D8%B1

⁷⁶ See a MERIP interview with the economist Mohammad Maljoo on ‘Labour and Class in Iran at http://merip.org/2017/labour-and-class-in-iran/

⁷⁷ https://www.magiran.com/article/3265021

⁷⁸ For a sample of his activities as a parliamentarian, see https://www.icana.ir/Fa/Search/ST=محجوب_کارگر_بیگانه%7CTT=AND

⁷⁹ During the 2015 International Workers’ Day march, organized by Khanih-yi Kargar, several banners with the slogan ‘Shame on you, employer, let go of the Afghani’ were carried.

⁸⁰ For a list of interviews with critical Majlis deputies see, https://www.icana.ir/Fa/Tags/5037/%D8%A7%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%A8%DB%8C%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%87/2