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Saudis, Israelis adamant to create more sectarian strife: Activist

An Afghan protester screams near the scene of a bomb attack that targeted crowds of minority Hazaras during a demonstration in Kabul on July 23, 2016. ©AFP

Press TV has interviewed Shabbir Hassanally, an activist and Islamic scholar from London, about the Daesh infiltration into Afghanistan.   

Press TV: We are witnessing Daesh’s successful infiltration into Afghanistan where the Taliban and the government are both opposed to it. Is it fair to say that the incompetence of security apparatus is contributing to Daesh’s rise in this country?

Hassanally: I think that is one aspect. We have to remember most places where Daesh seems to be making some sort of headway, you’ve got the tentacles of the American empire stepping in and providing “assistance” in one way or another, so that is sort of something that needs to be thought through when discussing this. Of course we have to understand that the Saudis and others they are adamant, especially in their dying throes; as the Saudis and the Israelis are adamant to create more and more sectarian strife. What is more heart-breaking really is the fact that the Hazaras have been suffering, even in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, for a very long time as a group and the plight is rarely mentioned on the mainstream media; of course Press TV, Al-Alam and other places are part of free media …

Press TV: About the same number of people [was] killed in this attack as the one in Nice France but you saw what kind of coverage Nice France received from Western media and why is there so much difference in the kind of coverage that Hazara people are receiving? Are certain people more expendable than others in Western media?

Hassanally: Unfortunately yes; we have to face the fact that the Western media is, for want of a better word, racist, classist and discriminatory. It does not consider the blood of people from outer part of the world from the Middle East, from Afghanistan, from Pakistan, from Iraq, from Lebanon, from Syria as being valuable. The reasons for this are multiple, we all know that most of the attacks that happen in the West, including the Nice attack, are almost certainly false flag operations, but I don’t want to go into that right now. What is tragic is that the Hazaras have been struggling for a long time and they constantly get hit on, they constantly get attacked. They are considered, I think, by Daesh and those behind Daesh, … a soft target and the government of Afghanistan really needs to get its finger up, needs to stop being so complacent and so docile in the way it operates and starts giving equal protection to all people, regardless of what background they are, because the Afghan government, for reasons better known to itself, also has associations and affiliations with some of the most corrupt entities globally, including the American Empire and the Saudi cult.

Press TV: The Hazara committee are also blaming the government for not providing them with adequate protection and they are actually out protesting the fact that they are not getting a power line that they have been trying to lobby for quite some time for millions of people in that area. Are they a persecuted people in that country?

Hassanally: Without a doubt. Like I have said, the Hazaras are an important part of Afghanistan like every other ethnic group within Afghanistan, but the Hazaras seem to be really trampled upon the rights that have never been recognized. It’s ironic that they are actually out protesting something … as distributing power line, when they are specifically attacked. This itself is a damning condemnation of the sheer incompetence, or maybe complicity, of the Afghan security services of course led by the Afghan government which has many many problems. Of course we understand that they have been through all of these problems, they have just recently started getting things together, but if you look at some of the facts in Kabul, and how the richer people in Afghanistan live, just like in every part of the world the way the rich live, and you see the way these poor Hazaras live, it’s heart-breaking. These people even have to go out and protest that they want a power line, so we can contribute back into the economy shows how … it speaks volumes, unfortunately.


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