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Loading…Remembrance · Dignity · Justice
Drum Theatre, Dandenong, Victoria — a community gathering to honour Hazara lives and preserve our shared memory.
The Hazara Cultural Association hosted the 133rd Hazara Genocide Memorial at the Drum Theatre, Dandenong (360 seats). The theatre reached a full house, with an additional queue of around ten attendees at the entrance during peak arrival. Alongside the memorial program, an exhibition documented the loss of innocent Hazara civilian lives over the past 25 years in Afghanistan and Quetta.
This strong turnout reflects the Hazara community’s deep memory of persecution and dispossession in our ancestral homeland, and a shared commitment to remembrance, dignity, and justice.
Social worker & PhD candidate (University of Newcastle) — refugee trauma, post-traumatic growth & wellbeing
PhD candidate researching post-traumatic growth and wellbeing among refugees; keynote on trauma, resilience, and Hazara community wellbeing.
Independent historian & archivist (Hazara history; British archives)
Researcher of Hazara history drawing on British colonial records and declassified documents; speaker on the 1891–93 events and the Hazara Pioneers; contributor to Hazara Archives.
Testimony: Hazara child survivor of the 1998 Mazar-i-Sharif massacre
Hazara child survivor of Mazar-i-Sharif (1998), recalling Taliban commanders urging house-to-house shootings targeting Hazaras. Now in Australia, he shares testimony for memory and justice.
Mayor, City of Greater Dandenong
Mayor of Greater Dandenong, which issued a formal statement recognising the ongoing Hazara genocide in Afghanistan and advocating federal action.
The foyer featured an exhibition of names and photographs of Hazara civilians who lost their lives in the last 25 years. Panels and banners provided context, personal stories, and historical timelines to honour their memory and educate attendees.
Historical note: Sydney-born physician Lillias Anna Hamilton—formerly court physician to Amir Abdur Rahman Khan—described the Hazara war as a struggle for survival in A Vizier’s Daughter: A Tale of the Hazara War (1900).
Full house: all 360 seats at Drum Theatre, Dandenong. A collective remembrance of genocide and colonisation (1891–1893), with losses recorded by Faiz Mohammad Katib in *Siraj al-Tawarikh* (vol. 4) as affecting over 400,000 Hazara families (~2.4 million people).
A tribute linking Hazara memory of Bamiyan with First Nations' connection to Country — standing together for dignity, truth, and rights.
Names and photos honouring Hazara teenagers killed in an attack on a girls’ school in West Kabul.
Memorial banner with names and images of Hazara civilians lost over the past 25 years; some researchers describe the Hazara genocide as among the longest-running.
Grace Sultani urged the Hazara community to wear their ancestral identity and traditions—and carry their language—with pride. She highlighted the long history of erasure; the memorial recognises more than a century of systematic erasure and dehumanisation of Hazaras under successive rulers in Kabul.
Huma Media’s documentary reflected on Hazara resilience and the struggle for survival, recalling Shirin and her companions’ last stand—retreating to a mountain to avoid capture and enslavement—as preserved in community histories and early accounts.
Mohammad J. Gulzari, historian and archivist, cited British colonial records describing how Afghan ruler (Abdur Rahman Khan) mobilised volunteer militias by enlisting religious authorities to brand Hazaras as ‘infidels,’ leading to indiscriminate shootings and the enslavement of Hazaras.
Interactive quiz on Hazara history and the genocide—designed to build cultural awareness among youth and challenge long-standing official narratives from Afghan Rulers, such as portraying Hazaras solely as recent Mongol-era arrivals rather than an Indigenous people of Hazaristan (noted in British-Indian records as “Hazara country” and in Persian sources as “Hazaristan” prior to the 1890s genocidal campaign).
Testimony from Mazar-i-Sharif (1998): house-to-house searches targeting Hazara families; a four-wheeled karachi (handcart) bearing bodies—including infants—for burial; a fainting father given water—drinking it in one gulp; the mulla-kalāntar (Taliban commander) pushing the crowd back and hurling abuse; an old man crying, ‘Qazil Ābād has no one left alive’; the cart’s toothed wheels the only thing he could bear to watch—and many bodies left unburied.
Ali Khan, HCA’s Policy & Strategic Advisor, outlined the legal framing of the Hazara genocide and why official recognition matters—for justice, prevention, and community healing.
Full house at Drum Theatre, Dandenong — a brief excerpt from Huma Media’s documentary.
A short crowd-and-stage snapshot captured by community member Sam Hashemi during HCA’s 133rd Hazara Genocide Memorial.