September 25 Hazara Genocide Remembrance Day

A report dated 10/19/1983 records that
Amir Abdul Rahman Khan sold 10,000
captive Hazaras as slaves.

September 25 of each year marks the remembrance of the Hazara genocide. Social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook are flooded with commemorative messages from Hazara users using #StopHazaraGenocide. Today marks September 25, 1982, when the blood thirsty Amir Abdul Rahman Khan issued a decree in which he announced the Hazaras as infidels to be annihilated entirely. In his book, Siraj-al Tawarikh, Faiz Muhammad Katib, the official historian of the court of Kabul and a Hazara himself, records that more than 60 percent of the Hazaras were killed, enslaved, and displaced. According to Katib, more than 400,000 Hazara households (khanwar) were killed, enslaved, and displaced. If we consider an average household of 6 people, 2.4 million Hazaras had vanished, and their lands were usurped by Pashtuns, as Amir called the bounty of war. 

September 25 marks a day of remembrance for Hazaras as a collective and distinct cultural and ethnic group, recognizing that the past is not a static fact but an active process that shapes the lives of Hazaras today and in the future. The Hazaras have been experiencing genocide since then, and it continues. Have a look at this extensive report by the New Line Institute on September 1, 2025, about the ongoing genocide of the Hazaras under the de facto regime of the Taliban.

Through this calendrical ritual, the Hazaras are attempting to understand their past, which is so deeply ingrained that it will continue to impact their future. Transforming a historical event into an annual recurring practice will reinforce the Hazara group's solidarity, and it represents a crucial first step in understanding what happened in the 1890s and its subsequent consequences. 

September 25 Hazara genocide remembrance is happening almost entirely online. Digital content such as writing stories, creating art, and music videos, and organizing spaces where the Hazara genocide is being discussed are all marked under the hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide, which has so far garnered more than 50 million tweets. This means that the traditional spaces of remembrance (which used to be in masjid and minbar) are moved to a new space. There is now a diasporic public sphere in which Hazaras worldwide participate, engage, and strengthen their transnational Hazara identity. This synchronized effort, initiated in the aftermath of the Enlightenment Movement, will continue to strengthen the global community of Hazaras.