Pakistan Court Blocks Expulsion Of Afghan Medical Students

A Pakistan court has blocked an order directing the expulsion of more than 100 Afghan students studying medicine and dentistry in the country.

The Lahore High Court on Friday extended a stay order preventing medical colleges from expelling the Afghan students and sending them back to Afghanistan.

“The Lahore High Court has extended the stay order preventing the expulsion of over a hundred Afghan medical students from medical colleges until the next hearing,” the court said in a decision seen by AFP.

Justice Khalid Ishaq did not set a date for the next hearing.

Earlier this month, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) directed academic institutions not to facilitate Afghan nationals during the current academic session.

In a letter to college deans, the council said Afghan nationals already enrolled in medical and dental programmes in Pakistan were required to return to Afghanistan.

The letter, seen by AFP, did not specify the authority behind the directive but described the matter as relating to “national policy directions”.

Speaking after Friday’s hearing, a final-year medical student in Lahore, Mubin Ulfati, said the students had anticipated legal intervention.

“We were predicting this, because in a view of human rights, education is our primary right, so we were 100 percent sure that this was going to happen,” the 24-year-old told AFP.

Ulfati said he had been given 24 hours to leave Pakistan after returning from a hospital shift in July, adding that students remained uncertain about their future.

A similar petition challenging the expulsion order has been rejected in Balochistan province, while another case is pending in Sindh.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with tensions escalating into weeks of conflict earlier this year.

According to United Nations data, more than 2.5 million Afghans, including many who had lived in Pakistan for decades, have left or been expelled from the country over the past three years amid Islamabad’s deportation drive.

Human Rights Watch has called on Pakistani authorities to reverse the PMDC directive, particularly highlighting the situation of Afghan women who are barred from studying in Afghanistan.

Amnesty International also criticised the move, describing it as “discriminatory and arbitrary”.

Among the petitioners before the Lahore High Court was a 23-year-old student who was days away from completing her second year when she was ordered to return to Afghanistan.

Although a provincial judge suspended the expulsion order on September 11, the student said her academic records had already been removed from her university’s online platform.