(31 Dec 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Karachi - 30 December 2022
1. Wide of Afghan women and children in Central Jail of Karachi
2. Various of disabled Afghan woman
3. Close of feet
4. SOUNDBITE (Pushto) Gul Khanda, 65, prisoner in Pakistan, from Paktia, Afghanistan:
“Please let us go. We have been here for over two months. For God’s sake let us go now. Please release us. We have served our two-month sentence. We should be released now. Have mercy on us for God’s sake.”
5. Various of women sitting with children
6. SOUNDBITE (Pushto) Nilofar (second name not given) 67, prisoner in Pakistan, from Parwan, Afghanistan:
“We came from Afghanistan. We are poor. My husband is old. He can’t work. My two sons used to work for a brick kiln. If you don’t want us to work here, let us go back to Afghanistan. We have a house there. We will go back home. I am sick and so are my two daughters in law. For God’s sake, release us so we may go back home.”
7. Various of Afghan women and children
8. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Sheeba Shah, superintendent for the Central Prison for Women:
“They don’t have legal documents. That’s why they have been arrested. They have been brought here under court orders. We have around 300 women prisoners here and 203 children. Out of these women, 129 are Afghani who are accompanied by 178 children. The children are not involved in any case. They are here only because they are with their mothers. They are young children of one to eight years, including girls.”
9. Mid of desk
10. SOUNDBITE (Urdu) Sheeba Shah, superintendent for the Central Prison for Women:
“Out of these 129, 54 have been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for two months. The other 75 are under trial. They are appearing in courts regularly. In the first week of January, the process to deport around 58 of them will start.”
11. Various exteriors of Central Prison for Women and Correctional Facility in Karachi
STORYLINE:
A prison official in Karachi, Pakistan, said they would start deporting Afghan women who had been sentenced for living in the country without legal documents from the first week of January.
Pakistani police in multiple raids detained at least 1,200 Afghan nationals, including women and children, who had entered the southern port city of Karachi without valid travel documents, officials said Thursday.
The arrests brought criticism from around Afghanistan after images of locked up Afghan children were circulated online.
“In the first week of January, the process to deport around 58 of them will start,” said Sheeba Shah, the superintendent for the Central Prison for Women in Karachi.
She said there were 129 Afghani women in the jail who were accompanied by 178 children.
“Out of these 129, 54 were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for two months. The other 75 are under trial,” Shah said.
Nilofar, 67, who is from Parwan, Afghanistan, told The Associated Press if the Pakistani authorities didn’t want to allow them to work, they should let them go back to Afghanistan.
The detentions underscored the strained relations between the two South Asian neighbours.
Police and local government officials said the detainees will be deported to Afghanistan after serving their sentences or when the paperwork for their release is completed by their attorneys.
Pakistani officials claim that most of the detainees wish to return home.
Although Pakistan routinely makes such arrests, multiple and apparently coordinated raids were launched beginning in October to detain Afghans staying in Karachi and elsewhere without valid documents.
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