{"id":33002,"date":"2023-12-08T14:08:06","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T14:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/imrans-statement-on-afghan-refugees-aimed-at-garnering-sympathy-of-afghan-govt-info-minister\/"},"modified":"2023-12-08T14:08:06","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T14:08:06","slug":"imrans-statement-on-afghan-refugees-aimed-at-garnering-sympathy-of-afghan-govt-info-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/imrans-statement-on-afghan-refugees-aimed-at-garnering-sympathy-of-afghan-govt-info-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Imran\u2019s statement on Afghan refugees aimed at \u2018garnering sympathy\u2019 of Afghan govt: info minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>Caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi on Friday said former prime minister Imran Khan\u2019s statement about the expulsion of Afghan refugees was aimed at \u201cgarnering the sympathy\u201d of the interim Afghan government.<\/p>\n<p>In November, the caretaker government had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1785519\">initiated a nationwide campaign<\/a> to deport illegal foreign nationals, the majority of whom are Afghans. While the decision had prompted criticism from Afghanistan and several other quarters, the government has refused to budge, insisting the move is not aimed at any particular ethnic group.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1788194\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Of the more than four million Afghans living in Pakistan, the government estimates 1.7m are undocumented. So far, thousands of Afghans have returned home from the Torkham and Chaman border crossings.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, a statement from Imran \u2014 who is currently incarcerated in Adiala Jail \u2014 was issued on social media platform X on the issue, criticising the treatment allegedly being meted out to Afghan refugees.<\/p>\n<p>Imran said that treating refugees with respect was a \u201cnational obligation\u201d while also talking about the traditional and historical links between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said Pakistan had accommodated Afghan refugees for close to four decades and the effects of decades of hospitality were being wasted due to a \u201cdeficient plan\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The PTI chief said 1.5m refugees were not that much of a burden on a population of 250m.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to a question about the former premier\u2019s statement during a press conference in Quetta, Solangi said: \u201cIt seems to me, that an attempt is being made to create an environment to garner the sympathy of Afghanistan\u2019s government [\u2026] and indirectly, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members sent by them and create such an atmosphere in the next elections that his party gains an advantage in a way over other political parties.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The information minister said if this was so, then it would be most \u201cunfortunate because the need is that all parties have equal security and opportunity in the elections\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Solangi said it was necessary to ask the PTI chief and his aides under which agreement or without asking the Parliament, \u201cthousands of TTP terrorists\u201d were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1738134\">allowed to resettle<\/a> in Pakistan before the end of the PTI government\u2019s term.<\/p>\n<p>The information minister also questioned the legitimacy of Imran\u2019s post, saying that the facility to post on social media about anything was not being provided to the PTI chief. He asked whether the statement had indeed been posted by him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf this really is his opinion, I wish that he had also spoken about the difficulties of 250m Pakistanis instead of trying to represent the illegal Afghans in Pakistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Solangi said the accusation in Imran\u2019s post regarding the forced expulsion of Afghan refugees was \u201cbaseless\u201d, saying that the majority of the 500,000 that left were not \u201cshoved out\u201d and had left willingly while only a few thousand were forcefully expelled.<\/p>\n<p>He added that there may have been one or two instances of injustice in the exercise but the provincial and federal governments would take notice and investigate them.<\/p>\n<p>Solangi said the government would be mindful and ensure that humanitarian norms were considered during the deportation exercise.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caretaker Information Minister Murtaza Solangi on Friday said former prime minister Imran Khan\u2019s statement about the expulsion of Afghan refugees was aimed at \u201cgarnering the sympathy\u201d of the interim Afghan government. In November, the caretaker government had initiated a nationwide campaign to deport illegal foreign nationals, the majority of whom are Afghans. While the decision [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/08171655b742e69.png?r=180115","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}