Pakistan: Pakistan orders expulsion of 29 international NGOs
Event- Country
- Pakistan
- Initial Date
- Dec 14, 2017
- Event Description
Pakistan has ordered almost 30 international non-governmental organisations to leave the country, the latest sign of a wider crackdown on human rights and civil society across south Asia. The interior ministry has in recent days written to 29 organisations, including ActionAid, Plan International and Marie Stopes, to warn them their applications to continue working in the country have been rejected and that they should leave within 60 days. None has been given a reason. The development is the latest example of Islamabad's hostility towards international NGOs, which began in 2011 after the killing of Osama bin Laden. Pakistani intelligence services�_accused Save the Children of being complicit in helping the US Central Intelligence Agency find the al-Qaeda leader - something the charity denies. The move is also part of what many view as deteriorating human rights across the region, which has seen foreign funding for NGOs cut off, activists disappear and journalists killed. "In Pakistan, India and Nepal, space is closing in which NGOs are able to operate," said Binaifer Nowrojee, head of Asia-Pacific for Open Society Foundations, one of the groups banned by Pakistan. "It comes along with a growing national pride and economic confidence in these countries. They feel that the era of being dictated to by the west is coming to an end." A doctor in Pakistan who helped track down bin Laden told investigators he had been introduced to the CIA by a senior Save the Children official. The charity said it had never employed the doctor but the organisation was thrown out of the country in 2012. Pakistan's government two years ago announced a registration regime for all international NGOs and cancelled agreements with 15 of them. However, the latest expulsions are different because many of the organisations affected are not involved in promoting human rights or good governance - activities that frequently irritate authoritarian governments. Officials at Pakistan's home ministry said some of the groups had attracted the government's attention because they operated in parts of the country where militancy was high and where Pakistan suspected western intelligence agencies also operated. One senior government official told the Financial Times that the government had also grown suspicious of the high salaries paid by some organisations, and wondered whether they were being used to fund intelligence work on behalf of foreign governments. All the charities contacted by the FT denied this was the case. The Pakistani move follows a similar push by its neighbour India to restrict NGOs that receive foreign funding. In 2015 New Delhi put the Ford Foundation on a watch list and suspended Greenpeace India's licence. This year it banned foreign funding for the Public Health Foundation of India, a group backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, saying it used foreign donations to "lobby" for tobacco-control policy issues. Human rights campaigners say the moves to hamper foreign NGOs are part of a broader move against civil society across the region, which includes what campaigners say are forced disappearances of activists who upset governments. In Pakistan�_hundreds of activists have disappeared over the past few years. But while the disappearances were previously mainly limited to restive areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they now appear to be spreading into the country's big cities.�_ Raza Khan, a peace activist who has advocated a rapprochement with India, went missing from Lahore this month.�_ Similar disappearances have occurred in Bangladesh. The most recent case involves Mubashar Hasan, an assistant professor at a Dhaka university who researched terrorism.�_His friends�_say they suspect he is being held by security forces - a claim authorities deny.
- Impact of Event
- 29
- Gender of HRD
- Other (e.g. undefined, organisation, community)
- Violation
- Administrative Harassment
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of association
- HRD
- NGO
- Perpetrator-State
- Government
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 25.07004279999999
Longitude: 67.2847875
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 14 December 2017. Pakistan has ordered 29 international non-governmental organisations to leave the country.