Abdul Mutaleb Haqqani, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees, stated that approximately 12,000 Afghan citizens are currently detained in the prisons of Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey.
In an interview today (Tuesday, April 1,) with the Taliban-controlled national television, Haqqani also claimed that over the past year, more than 4,000 Afghan prisoners have been released from prisons in Iran and Pakistan and returned to Afghanistan.
According to Haqqani, currently, around 8,000 Afghans are imprisoned in Iranian prisons, 3,000 in Pakistan, and between 500 to 1,000 in Turkey.
He added that in the year 2024, 3,000 prisoners were transferred from Pakistan, and 1,350 from Iran to Afghanistan. This Taliban official also emphasized that there is “full readiness” for the return of Afghan citizens from various countries.
Haqqani further mentioned that since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, around 5 million Afghans have returned to the country.
However, accurate statistics regarding the number of Afghan prisoners in foreign countries are not available.
Askar Jalalian, Deputy Minister of Justice of Iran, stated last year that approximately 8,000 foreigners are imprisoned in Iranian jails, with “most of them being Afghans.” Previously, the Taliban had also announced that as a result of negotiations with Iran, 4,000 Afghan prisoners were transferred from Iranian prisons to Afghanistan in 2024.
After the Taliban’s return to power, thousands of former government employees, civil society activists, human rights advocates, and journalists fled the country fearing Taliban retaliation. Many of these migrants are living in neighboring countries such as Iran and Pakistan, often without legal documents, leading to widespread arrests and deportations back to Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s claims about the transfer of prisoners come amid relations that, despite being relatively close with regional countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran, have sometimes been tense due to security and border issues.
