Canada’s first Afghan-born MP shocked to learn she wasn’t born in Afghanistan

[Canada’s first-Afghan born MP Maryam Monsef learned last week from a newspaper that she was born in Iran. THE CANADIAN PRESS]

Maryam Monsef, the Liberal cabinet minister feted as this country’s first Afghan-born MP, says she was shocked and angry when she found out — from a reporter — that she was not, in fact, born in the South Asian nation.

It was actually the Ottawa bureau chief of the Globe and Mail newspaper that told Monsef last week that she was born in neighbouring Iran and not the country of her parents, as she was led to believe her entire life.

“In recent days, my mother told me for the first time that my sisters and I were in fact born in Mashhad, Iran, approximately 200 kilometers from the Afghan border,” Monsef says in a statement.

The minister for democratic reform — the youngest member of the Liberal cabinet — says her mother has since told her that the town where Monsef’s parents were married, Herat, became very dangerous during the Soviet era and afterwards.

“No longer safe in their home town, my parents decided not to take risks and went to Mashhad, Iran, where they could be safe — with the hope of soon returning to the place their families called home for generations,” Monsef says.

“While we were technically safe in Iran, we did not hold any status there and like the thousands of other Afghan refugees, we were not afforded all of the same rights and privileges given to Iranian citizens.”

The Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Cold War-era politics played out in Afghanistan over the next decade, as the U.S. backed mujahedeen fighters who opposed the Soviets.

The last Soviet troops pulled out in 1989 and by 1996, the Taliban seized control of the capital city of Kabul.

Monsef’s father was killed in 1988 and she says her family then travelled back and forth between Iran and Afghanistan. Until last week, though, she believed she was born in Afghanistan.

“My sisters and I asked my mother why she never told us we were born in Iran. She told us she did not think it mattered,” she says.

“We were Afghan citizens, as we were born to Afghan parents, and under Iranian law, we would not be considered Iranian citizens despite being born in that country.”

Monsef, her mother and her sisters came to Canada in 1996, when she was 11 years old.

The Globe article does not explain what prompted the newspaper to dig into Monsef’s birthplace.

In an interview with CTV News, Monsef says she is still trying to come to term with just what the revelation means.

“I’m still a Canadian citizen, I’m still an Afghan citizen, and there’s some paperwork that I’m working on,” she says.

Monsef says she was first angry that the Globe was writing an article, then she was angry at her mother.

Now she’s mad at herself for feeling anger towards her mother.

“There’s been yelling in Dari and there’s been crying and there’s been ‘Is this true? Is this true?’” she tells CTV News.