Pakistan: Afghan filmmaker and journalist reported missing for over a month
Kabul, Aug 10 (IANS) Afghan journalist Sayed Qasim Hashemi and filmmaker Hamed Ehsas have been missing from Pakistan’s Islamabad since July 4, local media reported on Monday.
The families of Sayed Qasim Hashemi and Hamed Ehsas told newsmen that both of them left their homes together on July 4 to purchase camera lens equipment and have not returned home. Their family members approached police and judicial authorities in Pakistan for finding two men but have been given no clear information regarding their whereabouts, Afghanistan-based news agency Khaama Press reported.
According to the families, both men were living in Pakistan without legal residency and had entered the country with their families after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021. The families reported that the vehicle used by the two men was later found through GPS system in Islamabad, however, Hashemi and Ehsas were not present in or around the vehicle.
The families voiced concerns for the safety of the two men and urged Pakistani authorities to provide information about them, Khaama Press reported. The two men have been missing amid Pakistan’s intensifying pressure on undocumented foreign nationals, particularly Afghan people, including arrests and deportations.
Earlier in July, police detained 40 undocumented Afghan nationals during the crackdown on illegal foreign citizens in Charsadda city of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Charsadda Deputy Commissioner Azmatullah Wazir said that detained Afghan officials were shifted from the city police station to the Peshawar holding centre. He said the legal and administrative formalities would be conducted and then the individuals will be deported through the Torkham border crossing, Pakistani daily Dawn reported.
Wazir said the district administration in coordination with the police and other law enforcement agencies would continue operations against undocumented foreign nationals in Charsadda district. He said that campaign was being conducted as per the immigration laws and would continue without discrimination.
On June 28, Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior ordered the immediate arrest of any Afghan nationals found living in the country without a valid visa from July 10.
The deportation drive launched by Pakistan in 2023 was renewed in April last year when the government rescinded hundreds of thousands of residence permits for Afghans and warned them of arrests if they did not leave.
On June 20, Amnesty International urged the international community to stop the unlawful expulsion of Afghan refugees and called for protecting their needs as per international human rights law.
Afghan refugees face arbitrary arrests and family separations in host nations and face human rights violations when they return to Afghanistan, the rights group said.
“Millions of Afghan refugees are being expelled across the globe, and that number keeps climbing day by day. In host countries, they are facing arbitrary arrests and family separations; upon return, they are facing human rights violations amidst one of the most severe humanitarian crisis in the world,” Amnesty said in a post on X.
“The unlawful expulsions of Afghan people must stop, and people with international protection needs must be safeguarded as per international human rights law,” it added.
–IANS
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