Engineering Crisis and Systematic Dispossession: Reproducing Abdur Rahman-Era Policies Under the Cover of Fabricated Legalism

What is unfolding today in Kabul and other provinces of Afghanistan against the Hazara community is not an ordinary legal dispute or a local disagreement over land; rather, it is a calculated strategy to erode economic foundations, alter the demographic composition, and deprive a large ethnic and religious community of its right to social existence. Contrary to claims of dispersed authority or arbitrary conduct at intermediate levels, the Taliban ruling structure has adopted a fully integrated and systematic policy reminiscent of the exclusionary policies of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan in the late nineteenth century; with the difference that the overt repression of the past is today reproduced under the cover of special courts, the Ministry of Justice, and fabricated commissions.

1. Systematic Division of Labor: The “Scapegoat” Project and Deception of Public Opinion

One dangerous dimension of this strategy is the use of extremist and controversial figures, such as the acting Minister of Justice, as the spearhead of confiscation and repression. Within the Taliban governing apparatus, major land and security decisions are not made without coordination with and approval from Kandahar and the central leadership. Highlighting one ministry or one particular individual as the executor of land confiscations and seizures of residential settlements constitutes a form of political double game:

• Internal justification and evasion of accountability: The Taliban structure attempts to portray these incursions as individual actions, impartial implementation of “Sharia,” or recovery of “Emirate lands,” so that if international pressure increases, the issue can be reduced to the rogue initiatives of one individual.
• Unimpeded advancement of the core policy: In practice, all Taliban intelligence, security, and judicial organs serve this process. No obstacle is placed before these demolitions and extortion practices because the ultimate objective of the entire system is the elimination of the economic and civic foundations of the Hazara community.

2. Mechanisms of Repression: From Housing Extortion to Illegal Detention Facilities

The systematic intrusion into the private sphere and geography of Hazara life is being operationalized through new methods:

• Seizure of residential settlements and imposition of crushing rents: Armed entry into settlements such as Haji Nabi (Omid Sabz) and Etifaq in Dasht-e-Barchi, Kabul, and the extraction of compulsory undertakings under armed pressure are stark examples of gradual dispossession. When homeowners are demanded exorbitant sums for each room (such as 4,000 afghanis per month)—while a skilled worker or former government employee earns less than 10,000 afghanis monthly—the objective is clear: to impose complete economic bankruptcy and force people to abandon their homes and undergo forced displacement.
• Private prisons and systematic humiliation of elites: Well-known figures, civil activists, influential elders, and investors are arrested on fabricated pretexts and tortured and humiliated in private and unofficial detention facilities. Shaving detainees’ heads, psychological abuse, and extracting forced confessions and compulsory financial undertakings send an explicit message to society: there is no protection for any level of the elite.
• Targeted and silent killings: In various provinces, young Hazaras and former Hazara security personnel are detained under spurious accusations, after which their bodies are returned to their families or they are killed in complete obscurity, without any authority being held accountable for these crimes.

3. Instrumentalizing the Kuchi Issue: Continued Weaponization of Ethnic Tensions

For decades, the Kuchi issue has been transformed from a traditional pastoral pattern into a political and military instrument for the seizure of lands in Hazarajat. In Ghazni (Nawur, Jaghori, Malistan), Daikundi, and Bamyan, the armed and judicial support of Taliban courts for historical Kuchi claims has targeted the economic lifelines of local farmers. Citing forged documents or claims dating back several decades, local residents are compelled to pay millions in compensation or evacuate villages; a scheme that directly places the geography of Hazarajat under economic siege.

4. Global Double Standards and the Silence of the International Community

The greatest paradox of this humanitarian tragedy is the position of the international community and institutions that claim to defend human rights. Deals made behind closed doors in Doha and other capitals prioritized geopolitical containment and Western security interests over all human-rights claims. As long as structural discrimination, serial torture, and forced displacement do not pose an immediate threat to the borders of global powers, the response of international institutions remains limited to issuing a few general and ineffective statements.

Conclusion

The policies being applied today against the Hazara community constitute a modern revision of nineteenth-century scorched-earth and exclusion strategies. These actions—from Dasht-e-Barchi in Kabul to the foothills of Hazarajat—form an interconnected set of organized crimes against humanity. International forums, researchers, and human-rights institutions are obliged to look beyond the fabricated claims of the Taliban Ministry of Justice, document these cases as a targeted project of forced displacement, dispossession, and ethnic assimilation, and pursue those responsible before international courts.