Refugee activists lobby for government talks

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and UNHCR have called for urgent and open dialogue with the Government of Pakistan to protect the rights of Afghan refugees in the country. HRCP chairman Afrasiab Khattak told IRIN on Friday that communication between the government and Afghan refugee interest groups had “broken down” and it was time the authorities came to a “compromise” through negotiations. Khattak was speaking after a HRCP-organised seminar this week in northwestern Peshawar which heard views from academics, refugee leaders, rights activists and the UN, on the three most urgent issues facing Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Roy Herrmann, head of UNHCR sub-office in Peshawar, told IRIN that the one clear message he received was that people were “stunned” by the degree which conditions for refugees had deteriorated in Pakistan. “Speaker after speaker expressed the same message: ‘we are human beings’,” he said. Herrmann reiterated the need for dialogue with the authorities which would also take into account the government’s concerns that Pakistan was not receiving enough financial support from the international community to deal with the burden of 2.2 million Afghan refugees. But Herrmann said he was not optimistic that such dialogue would be forthcoming. UNHCR estimates that some 200,000 new refugees have entered Pakistan since last June alone. The three core issues debated were the 70,000 refugees at Jalozai camp, near Peshawar - the result of a stalemate between the authorities and UNHCR over the screening of the refugees; the imminent eviction of 100,000 long-term refugees from the nearby settlement of Nasir Bagh; and the stepping up of forced deportations of Afghan refugees. Despite the fact that Pakistan was not a signatory to international and UN refugee conventions, Khattak stressed that refugee rights “must be respected”. He said in the early 1980s when many of the refugees entered Pakistan, they did so on the invitation of the government of the time on “religious grounds”, with no legal framework in place. Only the heads of households at that time were formally registered, resulting in a great many today without papers. “Twenty years on, they are all being forcibly deported,” Khattak said. The HRCP is demanding the practice be stopped and is considering legal action against the government’s campaign to deport what it calls “illegal Afghan immigrants”. Khattak said the Peshawar superintendent of police had said that 60 Afghans a day were being deported. The seminar also discussed the looming eviction of 100,000 refugees at Nasir Bagh in Peshawar, one of the oldest refugee communities in the town. The 12,000 families there, many of whom bought and paid for their own houses, have been given until 30 June to move. This follows an announcement by the provincial government that the community will be ousted to make way for a new housing development. Khattak said no alternatives had been provided for the refugees, most of whom would be without shelter come the end of the month. He predicted “widespread chaos” in Peshawar should the eviction go ahead and called on the government to delay it. Prominent humanitarian and author on Afghanistan, Nancy Dupree, told IRIN earlier this month that the government had made no mention of compensation, and urged authorities to put such a programme in place. Otherwise, she predicted “10-20,000 refugee men will walk down Jamurd Road [the main thoroughfare] from the camp to the city to find work.” Dupree expressed concern that a potential eviction would provoke a “very serious reaction” from the Afghans and she questioned how the government would deal with such an outburst of violence.