Pakistan’s court blocks expulsion of Afghan medical students

A Pakistan court on Friday halted a government decision that would have expelled over a hundred Afghan medical students studying in the country. The Lahore High Court granted an extension to the stay order, delaying the deportation of more than a hundred Afghan medical students from colleges and universities until the next hearing, according to AFP.

Justice Khalid Ishaq, the presiding judge, did not set a specific date for the following hearing. A similar petition has already been rejected by a court in Balochistan province, while another is pending in Sindh. Earlier in the month, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) issued a letter to academic institutions stating that no facilitation of Afghan nationals is permitted for the current academic session.

This order caused distress among Afghan students, with one student saying it felt like the end of their dreams of becoming a doctor. The PMDC letter did not specify the authority behind its actions, but stated that the matter is of the highest priority and relates to national policy. Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have worsened since the Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021, leading to weeks of war earlier this year.

Over the past three years, more than 2.5 million Afghans have been expelled or left voluntarily from Pakistan as part of a deportation campaign. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both called on authorities to overturn the PMDC order, with Amnesty International branding it as "discriminatory and arbitrary." Among those appealing the decision is a 23-year-old Afghan woman who was just days away from completing her second-year studies in Pakistan.

She was told she must leave and return to Afghanistan, despite being one of only about 20 Afghan women out of 30,000 applicants to receive a scholarship in Pakistan. The undergraduate expressed her determination not to give up, vowing to continue her medical studies and emphasizing that sadness does not bring anything.