Investigating the Extent of Feeling Religious Discrimination among the Shiite Students in Afghanistan (Case Study in Kabul University)

In the last two decades, after enacting the constitutional law in Afghanistan in 2003 and granting the freedom of religious and ethnic minorities, the religious identity became one of the issues of public concern. The present study aims at investigating the extent to which the Shiite students feel being treated with religious discrimination by welfare services, the Sunnite students, the individuals in the campus, professors, and personnel in Kabul University. The research method was of survey type and Pearson correlation was used for analysis and description of statistical data. The statistical population consisted of all Shiite students in Kabul University from 2016 to 2018. For this purpose, 262 subjects were selected through Cochran formula. The sampling method was multistage sampling in the form of a combination of cluster sampling. The results show that more than 80% of the Shiite students felt being treated with religious discrimination by the professors, individuals in the campus and by the personnel. They felt less discriminating behavior (30%) on the part of the Sunnite students and in getting welfare services. Factors such as sex, age, major, and ethnicity had no considerable effect in discriminating treatment, and thus, there is no meaningful relationship between students’ sex, age, major, ethnicity and discrimination. However, there is a meaningful relationship between the students’ denomination and discrimination.