United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker T\u00fcrk said he is \u201calarmed\u201d by reports that Afghan refugees are being abused in Pakistan as the country carries out its policy of forced mass deportation. <\/p>\n
In a statement Wednesday, T\u00fcrk expressed concern at reports that <\/strong>\u201cthe arbitrary expulsion of Afghan nationals from Pakistan has been accompanied by abuse, including ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests and detention, destruction of property and personal belongings, and extortion.\u201d <\/p>\n He called on Pakistani authorities to suspend the repatriation programme \u201cuntil individual assessment procedures and other safeguards required by international law are in place,\u201d and appealed to Islamabad to probe \u201ccomplaints of abuse by law enforcement officers.\u201d <\/p>\n Pakistan, which is home to more than a million registered Afghan refugees, launched a mass deportation drive asking them to voluntarily leave the country by November 1. <\/p>\n According to the UN, more than 327,000 refugees have been repatriated to Afghanistan from Pakistan, with \u201cmany compelled to leave out of fear of arrest.\u201d <\/p>\n The UN has received reports of night raids, confiscation of cash, jewellery, livestock, arbitrary arrests and detentions of Afghan refugees by the local Pakistan police, the statement said. <\/p>\n \u201cArbitrary arrests and detentions are contrary to Pakistan\u2019s obligations under international law,\u201d T\u00fcrk added. <\/p>\n The UN Human Rights Chief called on Pakistan authorities to ensure protection for individuals who \u201cmay face persecution, torture, ill-treatment or other irreparable harm in Afghanistan, in accordance with the principle of non-refoulement.\u201d <\/p>\n T\u00fcrk added that women and girls are particularly vulnerable if repatriated involuntarily as the \u201cde facto authorities\u2019 policies and edicts\u201d limit their right to education, access to earning a living, movement and participation in public life. <\/p>\n When the Taliban regained control of the country in August 2021, the radical Islamist group shut down girls\u2019 schools and banned women from attending university. More recently they have closed beauty salons and prevented women from visiting a popular national park. <\/p>\n As of the end of 2022, Pakistan hosted more than 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and 427,000 people in \u201crefugee-like situations\u201d from Afghanistan, according to the\u00a0United Nations\u2019 refugee agency. <\/p>\n But their presence in Pakistan has long been controversial, with\u00a0police crackdowns and threats of deportation\u00a0in previous years. <\/p>\n Pakistan\u2019s authorities have framed it a crackdown on \u201cillegal immigrants.\u201d <\/p>\n A task force has been formed to \u201cseize people with fake identity cards and illegal properties built on their fake documents,\u201d while the country\u2019s national database and registration body has been ordered to cancel any \u201cfake identity cards\u201d and confirm any cases with DNA testing, authorities said earlier. <\/p>\n Many Afghans fled the Soviet invasion of their country in 1979, settling in Pakistan during the biggest refugee crisis in the world at the time. Another wave took place in 2021 after the\u00a0Taliban retook Kabul, with thousands of Afghans crossing the Pakistan border, often with incomplete paperwork while waiting for\u00a0visas\u00a0to third countries, such as the United States. <\/p>\n\n United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker T\u00fcrk said he is \u201calarmed\u201d by reports that Afghan refugees are being abused in Pakistan as the country carries out its policy of forced mass deportation. In a statement Wednesday, T\u00fcrk expressed concern at reports that \u201cthe arbitrary expulsion of Afghan nationals from Pakistan has been accompanied by abuse, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}