In a newly heightened drive, roughly starting September 9, against the Afghan refugees living across Pakistan, millions bear the risk of being humiliated, in the least, even if they are spared the deportation, as the caretaker setup blames them for most of the ills the country is fraught with at the moment.
The wave is based in ethnic discrimination, concur the local laywers and civil society people, seeing the developments come to pass, and even the Paksitani nationals that bear resemblance to these Afghans, most of the Pashtuns from Balochistan per se, are also branded as Afghans, and consequently are impugned and challenged for their nationality claims. “Even when they show their CNICs they face maltreatement,” say Tahir Zaland, information secretary for Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP).
In the past four decades, since Russia laid incursion in Afghanistan in 1978, leading the USA with its other ally countries to vie for the bounty, millions of Afghans were displaced, and most made ways to either Iran or Pakistan. Ever since then, many a crackdown have been announced intermittently against a refugee community with no place to call home.
But in all madness, a recent verdict of Islamabad High Court, in Rahil Azizi vs the state of Pakistan case, some method and reason was reintroduced as she was acquited, after languishing in jails and court hallways for years, finally earned her right to roam free and travel where she could.
Justice Babar Sattar wrote in his short order, dated June 2023:
“For reasons to be recorded later, this petition is allowed. There is no evidence establishing that the petitioner knowingly and illegally entered into Pakistan instead of entering Pakistan as a refugee to save her life. The Impugned FIR is therefore quashed. The Ministry of Interior will issue an exit permit to the petitioner forthwith.”
But can a single case victory pose sufficient resistance against a sea of mishandled cases centered in “ethnic dicrimination”, as the local human rights laywer Tahera Hasan terms it?
She points out the past such campaigns against other stateless ethnic groups, and the ramifications of which that those groups still suffer. The state-level apathy and social prejudice they face reduce their struggles to just making a bare living, with no facility a civilized urban spaces must afford its people.
“Even if they want to, they cannot break out of this cycle of suffering.”
Seniour correspondent for ARY News Faizullah, with expertise in militancy and Afghanistan, says what Afghans left back at home fearing for their lives, met them here where they seek refuge.
“If you go to Afghan refugee camps where they are settled, you’ll see how those places look like war-torn spaces.”
He adds with no basic facilities for them to lead, or even chance at, a normal life, most Afghan children are at risk of turning to criminal activities. He clarifies that it’s not an inherent tendency they bear in their ethnicity, but a fated result of what they’re suffering right now.
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