A group of Pakistani Senators, politicians, and activists have filed a petition with the Supreme Court challenging the mass deportation of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers by the caretaker government. The petition asks the Supreme Court to stop the deportations of undocumented refugees.
The signatories of the petition have appealed to the highest court to declare the government’s decision to deport undocumented refugees as “unlawful and against the constitutional law” of the country and demanded its immediate revocation.
Pakistan’s interim government had set a deadline of November 1 for the deportation of all undocumented immigrants, including over 1.7 million undocumented refugees from Afghanistan. The government has cited security concerns as the primary reason for this decision. Pakistan’s caretaker Interior Minister, Sarfaraz Bugti, warned undocumented migrants to leave Pakistan by the deadline or face forced deportation.
Pakistan has for decades hosted millions of refugees from Afghanistan, fleeing conflict, persecution, and unemployment at home. There are currently 3.7 million refugees in Pakistan, of which over 1 million are registered and 880,000 reside under other types of legal status.
Despite repeated calls from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN experts, the US government, the European Union, and many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, to reconsider its decision and prioritize the safety and well-being of refugees in the country, the Pakistani government has asserted that its decision to deport undocumented refugees is non-negotiable.
The Taliban authorities have also urged the Pakistani government to give refugees more time to return home and to treat them with dignity. “We expect them not to do this with forceful arrests, demolishing the immigrants’ houses and taking their properties, as well as not allowing them to carry out cash of even twenty to fifty thousand,” Khalil Rahman Haqqani, the Taliban Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, told TOLOnews on Thursday. “They should not give Afghans a hard time, they should not make more enemies,” he added.
The Pakistani government has begun deporting undocumented Afghan refugees through the Torkham and Chaman border crossings, even before the deadline of November 1. It has also established transit camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces to assist the refugees. According to the Pakistani Newspaper Dawn, a total of 165,000 undocumented refugees have been repatriated to Afghanistan thus far. Radio Pakistan reported that on November 2 alone, approximately 17,188 Afghans boarded 270 vehicles and returned to Afghanistan. The Torkham border, which typically closes at 6:00 p.m., remained open until 11:00 p.m. on Thursday.
The signatories of the petition have criticized the caretaker government’s decision to deport undocumented refugees, arguing that it violates Pakistan’s policy and international law and goes beyond the mandate of an interim government. They expressed concern that the interim government is making strategic policy decisions that will adversely affect the people of Pakistan.
