KABUL - Pakistan needs to take all necessary measures to end "rampant police harassment, threats and violence against Afghans living in Pakistan", Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday in a new report.
According to the organization, incidents of police abuse against Afghans have skyrocketed since the Pakistan Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar, Pakistan in December last year.
Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said: "The Pakistani police's outrageous mistreatment of Afghans over the past year calls for an immediate government response."
"The Pakistani government should press the police to apprehend perpetrators of atrocities instead of scapegoating the entire Afghan community," he said.
The latest HRW study found that Afghans in Pakistan have experienced a sharp increase in hostility since the so-called Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, attacked the school, killing 145 people, including 132 children.
The organization reports that the Pakistan government has responded with repressive measures including the introduction of military courts to prosecute terrorism suspects, the lifting of an unofficial moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and proposals to register and repatriate Afghans living in Pakistan.
Human Rights Watch said: "Police abuses have prompted fearful Afghans to restrict their movements, leading to economic hardship and curtailing access to education and employment. This oppressive situation has prompted large numbers of Afghans to return to Afghanistan, where they face a widening conflict and continuing insecurity."
"Deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan have already prompted more than 80,000 Afghans to leave their country in 2015 and seek asylum in Europe. Afghans uprooted by police abuses in Pakistan, where many have lived for decades, to return to Afghanistan may well add to the numbers of those seeking refuge in Europe as conditions deteriorate in Afghanistan," the report stated.
The Afghans Human Rights Watch interviewed described how the increasingly hostile climate for Afghans in Pakistan had left them feeling trapped: fearful of returning to Afghanistan, of Pakistani police raiding their homes and workplaces, and of paying bribes to the police to avoid arrest and detention.
Muhammad Ibrahim, 25, whose father fled Afghanistan in 1979-1980, has lived in the Tajabad area of Peshawar his entire life. He told Human Rights Watch that police harassment and intimidation had become constant in the aftermath of the Peshawar school attack.
"The police harass us every day. Sometimes they arrest us for a few hours, threaten us and then let us go. I feel afraid going out of my house in this area. Five days ago, the police arrested my brother when he went out to get milk, [but] they released him after many hours," said Ibrahim.
Qayyum, 24, was born in Pakistan after his parents left Nangarhar province in the mid-1980s. He has lived there all his life. He described how police abuse has increased for Afghans.
"Police threaten us more now. They threaten, sometimes hit us and ask for bribe money from those who can pay it. I have no money, so I cannot pay bribe money, [so] they question and curse me and then let me go.
hey don't only stop us at checkpoints, even the patrolling [police] cars stop when they see us and interrogate [us]. The police come to our shops and harass [us].... It has become very difficult to earn a living because of these factors. We are scared now," he said.
However, many Afghans told Human Rights Watch that they returned to Afghanistan because the rampant extortion meant they could no longer make ends meet in Pakistan.
Farhang, 31, originally from Parwan, went to Pakistan with his family in 1992 when he was eight years old. They settled in the Peshawar area where his father found work as a taxi driver. Farhang eventually found work driving a motorized rickshaw taxi.
He told Human Rights Watch: "The police started creating problems. They were going into people's homes. They came to our house and kicked in the door - this was after the [Peshawar] school incident. The children were very afraid. The police asked us, 'What are you doing here? - Go to your own country!' This was about a month ago [early July 2015] It was 1 a.m. ... they put all us men in the police cars and took us to the police station. We spent 11 days in jail. Then they took us to the border and told us to cross. I crossed, but then [a few days later] I returned to take my wife and child to Afghanistan. So I came to Kabul but I don't have any work here [or] a place to live."
Meanwhile, Kine said: "Pakistan's government has a responsibility to prevent and prosecute terrorist attacks."
"But permitting police reprisals against the Afghan population is neither lawful nor effective in combatting terrorism," he added.
Human Rights Watch has in turn called on Pakistan's allies to press the government to end abuses by security forces against Afghan refugees and undocumented Afghans.
In addition, they urged donors to consider providing additional support to Pakistan and Afghanistan to assist with the Afghan refugee population in Pakistan and returnees in Afghanistan, including improving their access to education services, healthcare, housing, and land.
They also said UNHCR should work closely with the Pakistani government to ensure that all undocumented Afghans seeking protection in Pakistan are able to register with UNHCR.
The government of Afghanistan has the responsibility to ensure that all Afghan returnees have the freedom to settle where they wish and have access to government health, education, and land allocation services regardless of their registered status in Pakistan, said the organization.
Kine meanwhile stated: "There is a simple reason why Pakistan police abuse of Afghans continues: the government is allowing police to get away with it."
"The Pakistani government needs to develop a long-term strategy that emphasizes the protection of its Afghan population rather than pursue a vindictive punishment policy that is as unlawful as it is inhumane," he added.
Pakistan is host to one of the largest displaced populations in the world. The 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees and one million undocumented Afghans that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates are living in Pakistan as of November 2015 include many who fled conflict and repression in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and their descendants.
Some arrived as children, grew up in Pakistan, married, and had children of their own who have never lived in Afghanistan. Others have arrived in the decades of turmoil in Afghanistan since, seeking security, employment, and a higher standard of living. (Tolonews)