Afghan refugees complain of police harassment

Afghan refugees going home after years of exile are complaining of harassment and extortion by the Pakistani police, citing it as one of the reasons for their decision to leave. "I have no complaint against the [Pakistani] people. They were kind," one refugee, Aslam Khan, told IRIN outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "But the police were terrible. They extorted money from us poor people," Khan said while waiting along with hundreds of other Afghans to go home. Khan had been a refugee for 18 years and was now leading his small family back to his country - ravaged by more than 20 years of war. "I hear things are much better there now, so I am leaving," he noted, adding that being a refugee meant living without dignity. Since 8 May, Pakistani police have rounded up more than 400 Afghans following the shooting dead of two local policemen by suspected Afghan refugees in the nearby town of Rawalpindi. The move has been strongly protested against by the Afghan embassy in Islamabad. "The police are saying that they are taking action against illegal Afghans," Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, first secretary at the embassy told IRIN. "But these are refugees who have been living here for more than 18 years peacefully." Naeemi said the issue of the crackdown on Afghans has been taken up with the Pakistan authorities. "We are reminding them not to spoil the atmosphere when these refugees are returning to Afghanistan after spending so many years here," Naeemi added. The crackdown on illegal refugees is taking place in parallel with a sweep on hardline Islamic militants across the country following a suicide bombing that killed 14 people, including 11 French nationals, in the port city of Karachi last week. "It has given them [the police] an excuse to arrest any Afghan without documentation," Ustad Hamid, an Afghan who has been living peacefully in Islamabad for more than eight years, told IRIN. "It is an excuse to extort money from us," he said, explaining that police were demanding anything between US $5 to $50 to let a refugee go. "Otherwise they will accuse him of something like possessing hashish, or theft, or whatever they want to," he noted. At least half a dozen refugees, 25 km outside Islamabad, on the way to Afghanistan repeated similar stories, accusing police of exploiting their vulnerability and adding to their suffering. But Pakistani officials denied that there was any wrongdoing. "We have a law against illegal immigrants, and if someone is here without documentation he is to be arrested," a senior police official, who wished not to be named, told IRIN. He said the local authorities were probing the killing of the two policemen last week in which witnesses had pointed out that the suspects were Afghans. "There is also a security alert in the capital because of terrorism," he added, explaining that anybody who could not prove his identity was liable to be arrested. However, several Afghans complained that even when they showed their passports, the police found an excuse to detain them and later demanded money from their relatives. "I request the Pakistani government to put an end to this harassment," Wali Khan Wali, another refugee, told IRIN. "This is not justice."