Sumar asks about an Afghan rapper who fled from the Taliban and has requested asylum at the Spanish Embassy in Iran

Eduardo González The Sumar Plurinational Parliamentary Group has asked the Government about the situation of an Afghan rap musician who has requested asylum at several embassies in Tehran, including the Spanish one, given the risk that the Iranian authorities will deport him to his country of origin, from which he had to flee because of his protest songs against the Taliban. In a written parliamentary question, registered at the end of November by the deputy Testem Andala Ubbi, Sumar (minority partner of the coalition government) explains the case of Saher Melody, the stage name of Mustafa Mohammadi, an Afghan rap musician and producer with more than ten years of experience who has achieved “great notoriety” in his country for “his protest songs against the Taliban and the American intervention”. Due to the success of these songs, and after the Taliban took power in 2021, “her life and that of her fellow dance and music students was in danger, which led them to seek refuge in other countries.” These people include the Afghan Manizha Talash, who spent a year as a “b-girl” representative of the refugee team at the Paris Olympics on behalf of Spain, where she resides. In addition, Saher belongs to the Hazara minority, “which increases her vulnerability in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have persecuted her ethnic group” through attacks, such as the one at the Kay Institute, and genocidal practices. In these circumstances, Saher left Afghanistan in 2022 to take refuge in Iran. However, his Iranian visa expired in July 2024, “leaving him in a dangerous situation, as the Iranian government deports Afghans, even those with valid documents,” Sumar continues. “Saher is now living in hiding in Karaj, fearing deportation to Afghanistan, where he would face reprisals,” a fear that “is based on news such as the recent death of 250 Afghans on the country’s border, after being deported by the Iranian police,” he adds. Desperate, Saher has requested asylum from various embassies, including the Spanish one, without success. “In fact, he has been waiting for a response from our embassy in Tehran for more than a year and a half.” Despite his attempts, only UNHCR offered him an interview so that he can apply for asylum in Finland in September 2024. “His situation remains critical, as he has no protection in Iran and the environment has become more hostile for Afghans due to the Iranian government’s deportation policies,” warns Sumar. For all these reasons, Sumar asks the Government about the status of “the request for an interview with the Spanish Embassy in Tehran” and “how many asylum applications by Afghan exiles are currently awaiting a response”. Likewise, it asks the Executive why Article 38 of the Asylum Law has not been applied, which provides for the possibility of emergency evacuations of applicants for international protection and Spanish consulates in countries such as Pakistan and Iran, “when the physical integrity of the applicant is at risk, and in this way promote their transfer to Spain to make it possible to submit the application in accordance with the procedure provided for in this Law”. Government Response In its response, issued on 12 February and published last week by the Official Gazette of Congress, the Government states that “it is not possible to provide information on individual cases” because, under the 2009 Law regulating the Right to Asylum and Subsidiary Protection, any information relating to the procedure, including the fact of the submission of the application, is “confidential”, a rule that extends “to applications for transfer submitted to a Spanish Embassy”. The Government also states that the aforementioned Law “does not allow the submission of applications for asylum in Embassies and Consulates” and, on the other hand, does provide that “transfer to Spain may be requested to make the submission of the application possible, provided that the applicant is not a national of the country in which the Embassy is located and his physical integrity is at risk”. The Executive also assures that “there are no statistics on how many individual applications are pending processing at the Spanish Embassy in Iran”, although it does specify that, to date, a total of 2,482 people of Afghan nationality have been transferred to Spain through the Embassies in Iran and Pakistan. The response also indicates that, from August 2021 to October 31, 2024, 3,318 applications for international protection from Afghan people have been submitted, of which a resolution has been issued on 3,064 and 254 are pending resolution.

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