ISLAMABAD: The fate of about two million youth of Afghanistan origin born in Pakistan since 1979 to-date hangs in balance as Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday directed the Interior Ministry and NADRA to furnish their clear reply whether the youth of Afghan origin born in Pakistan during last 44-years and still living in Pakistan will be granted the citizenship of Pakistan or otherwise.
According to estimates, there are about 1.5 to 2.00 million youth of Afghan origin, who born in Pakistan since 1979, when first Afghan war started and after that 400 to 500 million Afghan citizens came to Pakistan as refugees. Since 1980 to-date, almost 44 years have passed and all the Afghan children born in Pakistan during this period don not have the nationality of any country including Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Although during this period of 44 years, these youth had been going to Afghanistan and coming back to Pakistan, however, they do not have the nationality of either Pakistan or Afghanistan. They are living in Pakistan without National Identity Card (NIC) and they also have no Passport to travel anywhere in the world. Mr Fazl-e-Haque, a 24-year old youth of Afghanistan origin born in Pakistan in 1998 filed a petition in the IHC stating that Pakistan’s law provides that any child born in Pakistan is the citizen of Pakistan, however, he was not being issued the NIC by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), which was a deviation of the constitution of Pakistan, besides denial of his legitimate right.
He said he approached the Interior Ministry, but it was not resolving his issue. The IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah after hearing the legal counsel of the petitioner Fazl-e-Subhan on Thursday directed the Interior Ministry and NADRA to decide on his application and inform the court within seven days. The Chief Justice observed that ‘prima-facie the petitioner had the legitimate right to be granted citizenship of Pakistan as Constitution of Pakistan clearly provides that any such citizen can get his identification NIC from NADRA by presenting his birth certificate. It may be recalled here that when NADRA on the behest of previous government had blocked the NIC of Senator Hamdullah of JUI-F on the contentions that he was an Afghan citizen, the IHC had ordered NADR to unblock his NIC issued by it (NADRA), as he was born in Pakistan, thus was a citizen of Pakistan.
Talking to PPI, Advocate Umar Gilani, counsel for Fazle Haque said, my client was born in 1998 in Pakistan and since then he is living in Pakistan. He said he never visited any country of the globe except Pakistan. He said he has received his education till Intermediate from Pakistan’s schools and now he visits far-flung northern areas of Pakistan- Gilgit-Baltistan-from where he selects and purchases raw gem stones, take it to Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where he does process it and makes it purified. After that, he said, he sells these gemstones to the international markets through Amazon etc and earns foreign exchange for Pakistan, besides meeting his both ends meet. He said Section 4 of Pakistan Citizenship Act, 1951 states that “Every person born in Pakistan (after the commencement of this Act. Citizenship Act 1951) shall be a citizen of Pakistan by birth.
He said there are only two exemptions in this Act- one is, “the children of foreign ambassadors born in Pakistan will not be entitled to be treated as citizens of Pakistan and the other is “if any foreign force occupy on any part of Pakistan, their children born in Pakistan will not be entitled to be treated as citizens of Pakistan. To a query that if the government makes an amendment in the Citizenship Act of 1951 on emergency basis through an ordinance and decides that all the youth of Afghan origin born in Pakistan since 1979 to-date will not be granted the citizenship of Pakistan.
The counsel said that it would be an act of malafide and even then all these youth cannot be deprived from their right of citizenship as all children born in Pakistan before this (amended) act, cannot be deprived of their right of citizenship. He said there are dozens and dozens of superior courts judgments that ‘nobody can be deprived from his vested right’. He said majority of developed countries including USA, grant citizenship to the children who born on their lands. He said father of former US President Barack Obama was not a citizen of USA, however Mr Obama born in USA and later became the President of USA.