There is a Muslim population that is being forced into immediate deportation: hundreds of thousands are already on the march because they have to leave immediately; A total of 1.7 million are at risk of being expelled in a short period of time. At their destination – or repatriation – they may face a terrible fate. But their suffering does not deserve a single banner in European and American squares.
Even in the Arab world and in the larger Islamic community, this issue does not inflame tempers or lead to large demonstrations. Perhaps it is because neither Israel nor any other nation politically aligned with the West persecutes these Muslims. In this case, 1.7 million Afghan refugees suffer. They initially left their country to escape persecution by the Islamist Taliban and the economic catastrophe caused by the Kabul government. After seeking refuge in neighboring Pakistan, they are now under pressure from another Islamic theocracy. The government in Islamabad has ordered illegal immigrants – a category that includes the vast majority of these refugees – to leave the country.
The vast majority of recipients of the expulsion order are Afghans. Other Muslim minorities who came to Pakistan due to persecution in neighboring countries include Uyghurs who fled oppression by Chinese authorities in Xjinjiang; and the Rohingya who fled Myanmar. Not everyone is recently in exile. These migrants without a residence permit also include long-term residents of Pakistan, including minors born there.
However, the government in Islamabad believes that their presence is undesirable for the local population and causes tension. The Pakistani regime is primarily convinced that the Taliban, along with the refugees, entered its territory to carry out terrorist attacks. According to Pakistani police and security services, 14 of the 24 armed attacks since the beginning of the year have been carried out by Afghans.
The mass deportations began days ago and many Afghans have already crossed the border to return to their country of origin. The numbers are impressive. And the reasons given by the Pakistani regime certainly cannot be dismissed as pretexts. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan has once again become a haven for jihadist organizations. It is quite likely that there are terrorists among the Afghans in Pakistan who have carried out attacks. The parallels with the situation of the Palestinians are easy to see: among them, too, there are terrorists linked to Hamas or Hezbollah; However, when Israel attempts to attack terrorist organizations, innocent civilians also pay the price.
Many of the Afghans expelled from Pakistan certainly fall into this second category: first fleeing the Taliban’s violence and abuses, now fleeing again because they are suspected of being friends or accomplices of the Taliban. But we have not received any images of marches in front of Pakistan’s embassies in Egypt or Turkey, in Washington or Rome. The Turkish immigrants in Germany, the Moroccans in France, the Bangladeshis in England do not march through the streets of Berlin, Paris, London to denounce the atrocities committed by Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Arab street flares up in solidarity with its co-religionists when it is convinced that it is Israel or the West that is persecuting them; distracted and indifferent when it is Islamic regimes that commit abuses (which happens often). Even China under Xi Jinping enjoys a kind of immunity from protests in its sweeping campaign to ideologically “re-educate” Muslim Uyghurs.
The same is true when the streets of the West or American and European college campuses are outraged. Solidarity only sparked in Afghanistan when it came to denouncing the infamous American betrayal of their withdrawal from Kabul (which was often criticized by the same people who had judged NATO’s military intervention in that country as criminal). Anything the Taliban subsequently inflicted on their population is of less interest than the US withdrawal.
Muslim Pakistan, in turn, can attack Muslim migrants at home with impunity. Perhaps the only country paying attention at the moment is neighboring India: it is often accused of discriminating against its Islamic minority and is infiltrated by terrorist organizations headquartered in Pakistan. The latter, to recall a not-insignificant detail, preceded Iran in the nuclear arms race for decades. The Islamic atomic bomb already exists, and Islamabad has it.
November 6, 2023, 9:06 p.m. – modified on November 6, 2023 | 9:07 p.m
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