The deportation accords

This is no small matter because last year 90,000 people have been returned to Pakistan under these protocols

The nuts and bolts of the relationships between states are largely unseen and poorly understood when they are. Prior to the last week, few in Pakistan will have heard of the deportation treaties that Pakistan is a signatory to, which have now been suspended because of the alleged mistreatment of Pakistani illegal immigrants in a number of countries. This is no small matter if only because in the last year 90,000 people have been returned to Pakistan under these protocols, and suspending these treaties is going to create something of a diplomatic difficulty. What the protocols say in essence is that Pakistanis arriving illegally in a range of states will not be deported until proper verification of their circumstances. The Pakistan actions are linked to people being sent back to the country on the grounds that they are linked to terrorism, but there has been no legal finding to that effect. Indeed, some have been returned without it having been verified that they are Pakistani citizens at all.

The principal offenders are said to be European countries (excluding the UK). It is unlikely that all illegal immigrants are going to have a terrorist link, but reasonable to assume that some, a handful possibly — might. Tarring all with the same brush merely on the grounds of suspicion is unacceptable. This is tantamount to a gross abuse of a swathe of human rights, and a solution must be sought because the government is saying that if deportees are found to be on a flight that it believes has not been appropriately processed, then the flight will be denied permission to land. The Foreign Office position is that if an illegal immigrant is suspected of terrorist linkages, then it is for the receiving country to apply due process and prosecute accordingly. The purpose of international protocols and standard operating procedures is to smooth the everyday to-and-fro between nations, and if one of the parties chooses to ignore or circumvent them then they become meaningless. The government position is sustainable, but an urgent remedy must be sought before this becomes a diplomatic impasse.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2015.

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