The Municipality of Mashhad, the capital of Iran's Khorasan Razavi province, has issued an order prohibiting the activities of Afghans in the city's mobile markets.

Pictures published by local media outlets in Mashhad indicate that the new ban has been implemented at the entrance of Mashhad's Friday market.

On Saturday, Shahrara newspaper, owned by the Mashhad municipality, quoted Hasan Kilidari, a senior executive in the municipality, as stating that, according to the approval of the city's municipal social commission, “from now on, the activities of foreigners, under any title, in all of Mashhad's mobile markets are prohibited”.

Official statistics from the Iranian immigration authorities reveal that approximately half a million Afghans in Mashhad are registered with a residence permit.

This figure constitutes 95% of the total population of immigrants in Mashhad.

The decision to prohibit the activity of Afghans in mobile markets has sparked a reaction from cultural activists among Afghan immigrants in Iran.

Zainab Bayat, an Afghan poet and cultural activist residing in Mashhad, reacted to this move by questioning the move on her Instagram handle, “How can Afghans provide income for their families when all doors closed?”