All Illegal Migrants, Regardless of Nationality, Will Be Deported, Pak Tells UN

Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said, "Pakistan’s announced deadline for Afghans to return has led to detentions, beatings, and extortion, leaving thousands of Afghans in fear of their future."

She warned that the situation in Afghanistan remains dangerous for many of those who fled from the country, and their deportation exposes them to significant security risks.

Earlier, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior warned Afghans without legal documentation to leave the country voluntarily before November 1.

The government of Pakistan has announced that it is sticking to its plan and from Wednesday, November 1, it will take measures against people who are staying illegally in the country, including the confiscation of all movable and immovable assets.

An Afghan refugee in Islamabad who worked as a sports journalist in Kabul told Human Rights Watch that since Pakistan's warning, even Afghans registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are not immune to detention or deportation.

"There are police checkpoints everywhere," he said. "Even if you have a valid visa, you will still be transferred to the police station, and in most cases, you need to pay a bribe to get released."

According to him, in most cases, Afghan refugees must pay a bribe between USD 36 to USD 144 to the Pakistani police.

Human Rights Watch stressed that the government of Pakistan should end the police abuse of Afghan refugees and stop forced deportations.

This organisation asked Pakistan to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to resume the registration of Afghan refugees.

Human Rights Watch also asked the United States, UK, Germany, and Canada to speed up the resettlement of Afghans at risk, including human rights activists, journalists, the LGBTQ community, women, and girls.

A reliable source told Afghanistan International that on Monday, the Taliban court sentenced Parsi to four months in prison on the charge of blasphemy and 12 months in prison on the charge of propagandising against the regime.

Parsi was a university professor and expert on religious affairs and was arrested by the Taliban in March 2023.

He openly criticised extremism and violence on social media in Afghanistan.

This demonstration was held on the eve of the Pakistani government's deadline for the deportation of illegal Afghan immigrants from the country.

The protesters, who are defence lawyers, journalists, human rights activists, and others at risk from the Taliban, said that the UN refugee agency has not processed their cases in the past two years.

They said that the Pakistani embassy in Kabul does not extend the visas of Afghan refugees and that the refugee agency is not ready to provide the refugees with an official card to protect them from the harassment of the Pakistani police.

Zarghuna, one of the protesters, said that her case was registered two years ago at the United Nations office in Islamabad, but she has not seen any progress so far.

The protesters said that due to the UN refugee agency’s neglect, they face the threat of deportation from Pakistan.

According to the protesters, if they are deported from Pakistan, their lives will be in danger due to the anti-human rights practices and behaviour of the Taliban.

A group of Afghan women's lawyers, who were among the protesters, criticised the indifference of the UN Refugee Agency to the migrants' protests too.

At the same time, some refugees claimed that the employees of the NGO partner of the United Nations Refugee Agency had mistreated them.

At least two Afghan refugees told Afghanistan International that the employees of the NGO in Islamabad "beat them up with sticks".

Almost a month ago, the interim government of Pakistan announced that more than 1.7 million migrants "without official residence documents" in the country should leave Pakistan by November 1, 2023. Pakistan has warned that if the migrants do not leave the country, they will be imprisoned and deported.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan, in an interview with Afghanistan International, asked registered asylum seekers to refer to the organisation’s lawyers if they face police harassment.

Qaisar Afridi said that the lawyers of the UN organisation are available to asylum seekers all over Pakistan.

Afridi confirmed that there had been reports in recent months that Pakistani police had even harassed asylum seekers who had official documents from the UN Refugee Agency and were registered with the agency in Pakistan.

Talib had previously been the governor of the Taliban in Helmand province. He was also a key Taliban commander during the group’s raid on Panjshir province.

In a statement published by Mujahid on social media platform X, it has been stated that Abdul Rahman Kunduzi has been appointed as the new governor of Helmand province.

It was previously reported that the Taliban’s leader formed a military force of 40,000 people in Kandahar.

In March, Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS), said that approximately 60 billion Afghanis were spent from the Ministry of Finance's budget over the past year to support Hibatullah Akhundzada's specialised military forces.

In a statement, the Taliban's Ministry of Energy and Water said that "water management" had been discussed during this meeting.

According to the statement, repair of the 220 KV power line, a review of the imported power system from Uzbekistan, and the progress of the 500 KV Surkhan-Pul-e-Khomri project were other topics of discussion between the two sides.

Taliban’s Ministry of Energy said that the delegation of Uzbekistan invited Mansoor to visit Tashkent soon to follow up on the discussions over water management issues.

On Sunday, October 29, a high-level Uzbekistani delegation, led by Jamshid Khodjaev, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade of Uzbekistan, arrived in Kabul.

Yesterday, the delegation met with Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for economic affairs in Kabul. In the meeting, "water management", railway, transportation, technical extraction of mines in Afghanistan, and development of agriculture were the topics of discussion.

Issues of water management are being discussed even though the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, had previously criticised the Taliban for building a water canal in Qosh Tepa without coordination with neighbouring countries.

On September 15, at the fifth Central Asian Heads of State Summit in Tajikistan, Mirziyoyev warned that the Taliban is building the Qosh Tepa Canal and can fundamentally change the water dynamic and balance in Central Asia. He said that a new consumer has appeared that "does not have any commitment to our countries”.

Despite criticisms, the Taliban not only continued the construction of the canal, but on October 11, they announced the beginning of the second phase of transfer of water to the Qosh Tepa canal after completing the first phase.

At the second phase's inauguration ceremony, in what appears to be a response to Uzbekistan, Mullah Yaqoob, the Taliban's defence minister, stated, "Neighbours should not worry, we will never violate the rights of our neighbours while using the water of Amu Darya."