KARACHI: More than a dozen international organisations, including the Committee to Protect Jour­n­alists, have urged Pakistan to stop the deportation of Afghan journalists and citizens who faced the risk of persecution in their native country.

In a statement on Thursday, the rights groups expressed concern over the repatriation plan launched in October 2023. Under the plan, the foreigners residing illegally in Pakistan were asked to voluntarily leave Pakistan or face deportation. Since then, 1,047,010 Afghan have returned their country, according to UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The statement was also signed by the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and PEN International, an association of writers.

It said the repatriation plan was criticised by the Human Rights Comm­ission of Pakistan, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the IOM, which called upon Pakistan to “uphold its international obligations and continue offering protection to at-risk Afghans”.

“We urge the international community to continue to provide safety to at-risk Afghans, including writers, journalists, artists, human rights defenders and others who fled the Taliban’s persecution,” PEN International said.

The UNHCR’s has put out an advisory against the return of Afghans and UN experts have also called upon Pakistan to halt the deportations, the statement said, adding that despite the warnings, the government of Pakistan has accelerated the “forced” return of Afghans.

A number of deportees were writers, journalists, artists, and human rights defenders who were “at greatest risk of persecution” and faced threats of “arbitrary arrest, torture and imprisonment for any form of expression that the [Afghan] Taliban deem incompatible with their ideology”.

“Women and girls deported to Afghanistan will face overwhelming levels of repression impacting every aspect of their lives, amounting to what UN experts have described as ‘gender apartheid’.”

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2025