Pakistan’s Supreme Court recently initiated hearings into a petition aimed at ceasing the country’s deportation of Afghan refugees. The petition, brought forward by a consortium of human rights activists, lawyers, and politicians was triggered by the Pakistan government’s directive issued on October 3 to remove undocumented Afghan immigrants from its territory. This directive compelled undocumented Afghans to leave the country by November 1, failure to which they were detained by authorities, a scenario that triggered international human rights organizations to raise voices against Pakistan’s actions. JURIST reported these proceedings on their news platform.
More than 4.4 million Afghans, currently in Pakistan, were identified as being affected by this order, with petitioners labeling the government’s decision as “unlawful and against the constitutional law” of Pakistan. In the initial Supreme Court hearing, subsequent to an issue of a request for response from the government and other involved committees, the court adjourned the hearing until following week.
During these deliberations, Justice Ayesha Malik reaffirmed that “Pakistan is a signatory to the UN conventions on the protection of the rights of refugees” and is hence bound by these conventions. Ravina Shamdasani, a UN rights spokesperson, called for a suspension of the deportation plan, claiming that it breached international law and violated principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention, specifically the principle of non-refoulement.
The UN Refugee Agency also issued a statement expressing its concerns about the decision’s consequences. It highlighted that approximately 374,000 Afghans had already returned to Afghanistan as a result of this policy. To recall, Amnesty International had earlier in June raised issue with the arbitrary arrests and detention of Afghans by Pakistani authorities and urged for cessation of “arbitrary arresting and harassing of Afghan refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom are fleeing persecution by the Taliban”.