Early repatriation of illegal aliens demanded
Afghan women walk out of a National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) van after their data verification, at a police station in Karachi on Wednesday. Photo: AFP
The academicians, lawyers and civil society activists have requested the government to deport illegal immigrants from the country especially from Sindh in accordance with the country's laws and UN conventions.
In a statement issued by 86 persons including Prof Arfana Mallah, Prof Amar Sindhu and others in Hyderabad on Wednesday, they recalled that Pakistan was forced to act in a proxy war in Afghanistan started by the US after Gen Ziaul Haq's coup in 1977.
Tracing the origin of Afghan immigrants in the last century, they said the war opened floodgates for such refugees in Pakistan where an overwhelming majority of them was settled in Sindh particularly in Karachi and Hyderabad.
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"Against the wishes and aspirations of Sindhis, the State encouraged the influx of Afghan citizens to settle in Sindh with full patronage in order to change the province's demography," they asserted. They contended that the move then on part of the state also aimed to subdue the democratic resistance against against Zia's tyrannical dictatorship.
They maintained that Sindhis do not oppose genuine asylum seekers who faced problems on political, racial, gender and religious beliefs in their countries. "But there is a clear difference between an asylum seeker and an illegal immigrant under national and international laws." Though the asylum seekers have the right to remain in the host country, illegal immigrants under the law have no such rights, they continued.
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They argued that national, political, human and fundamental rights Sindhs as envisaged in the constitution have been badly affected by the illegal immigrants who turned into an unimaginable burden on their resources, jobs, education, healthcare system, language and culture.
Commenting on the people who want to extend stay of such immigrants in Sindh, they said while the human rights are cited to support prolonging stay of those immigrants, similar constitutional rights for Sindhis are ignored.
The academics Dr Firdous Bukero, Dr Haseen Musarat, Dr Muhammad Ali Shaikh and Dr Imran Ali Hashmi, lawyers Shazia Nizamani and Rubina Chandio, and writer Azhar Kalyani among others, endorsed the statement.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 9th, 2023.