ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani government announced on Saturday cellular services would remain suspended in parts of the Punjab and Balochistan provinces on April 21-22 on account of by-elections in 21 constituencies on Sunday, with the main opposition party calling the shutdown “unconstitutional and illegal.”
The by-polls on national and provincial assembly seats are the first major electoral exercise since the Feb. 8 national election in Pakistan, which were marred by a mobile service shutdown and result delays, leading to accusations that the vote was rigged and drawing concern from rights groups and foreign governments.
On Saturday, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), which regulates the Internet, said the decision to temporarily suspend cellular services in specific districts of Punjab and Balochistan was taken on the directions of the interior ministry.
“This decision has been taken to safeguard the integrity and security of the electoral process,” the regulator said in a statement on Saturday.
Sunday’s by-elections will be held on five National Assembly seats, 12 Punjab Assembly seats, and two seats each in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan assemblies. They were left vacant due to postponement of polls or were vacated by lawmakers, who won multiple seats, in the Feb. 8 national election.
The PTA announcement came hours after the Punjab government requested the interior ministry to suspend mobile phone services during by-elections in Talagang, Chakwal, Kallar Kahar, Gujrat, Ali Pur Chatha, Zafarwal, Bhakkar, Kasur, Sheikhupura, Lahore, Sadiqabad, Kot Chutta and Dera Ghazi Khan.
“I have been directed to request that mobile Internet services may kindly be suspended on 21st April, 2024 for maintaining law and order situation and to avoid any untoward incident [in the aforementioned areas],” a section officer of the Punjab home department wrote in his letter to the interior ministry.
The developments came amid expectations of a fierce competition between candidates backed by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and rival political groups.
In a statement, the PTI termed the shutdown of mobile phone services in districts where by-polls were being held "unconstitutional and illegal." “The Internet shutdown is unconstitutional, illegal and shameful, and a plan to rig the results,” it said.
The party urged its supporters to come out in large numbers to cast their votes to thwart these plans.
Meanwhile, the federal government authorized the deployment of civil armed forces and Pakistan Army to assist the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in peaceful conduct of by-polls.
In its code of conduct for the armed forces and civil armed forces on the polling day, the ECP said troops should not respond on their own to “an apparent irregularity” outside a polling station and bring the matter to the knowledge of the presiding officer for any necessary legal action.
The security forces were also directed not to “interfere in the counting process in any manner” and perform their duty outside the polling stations diligently, so that the counting process could be completed in a peaceful manner.
Pakistan to suspend cellular services in Punjab, Balochistan during Sunday’s by-polls
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Pakistan to suspend cellular services in Punjab, Balochistan during Sunday’s by-polls
- Jailed ex-PM Imran Khan’s party terms the mobile service shutdown ‘illegal, unconstitutional and a plan to rig the results’
- Pakistan’s national polls in Feb. were also marred by mobile service shutdown, result delays, leading to rigging allegations
UK, Pakistan foreign ministers meet after India conflict
- The conflict between nuclear-armed neighbors India, Pakistan sparked global concerns that it could spiral into a full-blown war
- Four days of intense drone, missile and artillery exchanges, killed around 70 people, including dozens of civilians, on both sides
ISLAMABAD: UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with his Pakistani counterpart in Islamabad on Friday, a week after the country’s most serious military confrontation with India in decades.
The latest conflict between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan had sparked global concerns that it could spiral into a full-blown war before a ceasefire was announced by United States President Donald Trump.
Lammy was received by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar at the Foreign Office, images broadcast by state television showed.
The United Kingdom was among several nations to urge de-escalation after last week’s clashes, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at the time that Britain was “urgently engaging” with both countries.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel Al-Jubeir, separately visited both countries last week offering to mediate.
Fighting began when India launched strikes on May 7 against what it called “terrorist camps” in Pakistan following an April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which killed 26 people.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the militants it claimed were behind the attack — the deadliest on civilians in Kashmir in decades. Pakistan denies the charge.
Four days of intense drone, missile and artillery exchanges ensued, leaving around 70 people, including dozens of civilians, dead on both sides.
Both India and Pakistan are members of the International Atomic Energy Agency and have accused each other of failing to control their nuclear weapons.
Flydubai begins operations in Pakistan’s northwest as first flight lands in Peshawar
- Peshawar is one of the oldest cities in South Asia, which features several cultural and historical landmarks
- Flydubai will operate daily flights between Dubai and Peshawar, offering customers ‘more options for travel’
ISLAMABAD: Flydubai, an Emirati government-owned airline, has launched its daily flights to the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, the Pakistani Airports Authority (PAA) said on Friday.
Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has a rich history that makes it one of the oldest cities in South Asia. Peshawar features cultural landmarks like the historic Bala Hisar Fort and the Qissa Khwani Bazaar, which once served as a gathering places for traders and poets.
The inaugural flydubai flight arrived at Peshawar’s Bacha Khan International Airport at around 12:30am on Friday, carrying 164 passengers, according to the PAA. It was given a water cannon salute upon arrival at the airport, followed by a ceremony to mark the start of airline operations in Peshawar.
“Flight FZ-375 departed back to Dubai at 2:20am with 184 passengers,” the PAA said in a statement. “Flydubai will operate seven flights a week.”
Flydubai has built a growing network of more than 130 destinations, 97 of which were underserved markets and did not previously have direct air links to Dubai, according to the airline, which has a fleet of 89 Boeing 737 aircraft.
The airline first started operating flights to Pakistan in 2010 with the launch of flights to the southern port city of Karachi. In addition to Islamabad and Lahore, the carrier also flies to Faisalabad, Multan, Quetta and Sialkot cities of Pakistan.
Flydubai this month said its flights to Peshawar airport will operate from Terminal 2 at Dubai International (DXB).
“Flydubai will operate a daily service between Dubai and Peshawar, offering customers from the UAE and the region more options for travel,” it said.
Pakistan plans more innovative ‘funding products’ as it issues $106 million Shariah-compliant bonds
- The proceeds of Green Sukuk are going to be used for key water-related infrastructure projects in the country, the finance minister says
- Pakistan has seen erratic changes in its weather patterns leading to frequent heat waves, untimely rains, and droughts in recent years
KARACHI: Pakistan has issued the inaugural Shariah-compliant Green Sukuk bonds worth Rs30 billion ($106 million), its finance minister said on Friday, amid Islamabad’s plans to launch innovative “funding products” for local and foreign investors.
The Pakistani government this month approved the issuance of Green Sukuk that has been structured to support projects aligned with environmental sustainability, including renewable energy and green infrastructure initiatives, marking a milestone in sustainable finance.
The inaugural $106 million bonds, which will be listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, has brought the percentage of the South Asian nation’s Shariah-compliant bonds to about 14 percent in our overall debt profile, according to Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.
“Climate change is an existential threat for Pakistan,” the minister said at a gong ceremony at the stock market in Karachi. “The proceeds of this Green Sukuk are going to be used for key water-related infrastructure projects across Pakistan.”
Pakistan has seen erratic changes in its weather patterns which have led to frequent heat waves, untimely rains, cyclones and droughts in recent years. Scientists have blamed the events on human-driven climate change. In 2022, devastating floods, blamed on human-driven climate change, killed more than 1,700 Pakistanis, affected another 33 million and caused the country over $30 billion in economic losses.
In November, Pakistan received $500 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as proceeds of a loan for the Climate Change and Disaster Resilience Enhancement Program, while the World Bank in January pledged $20 billion in loans to Pakistan under its 10-year framework that focuses among other things on the country’s increased resilience to climate-related disasters and better food security.
Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also approved $1.4 billion in climate financing for Pakistan.
“This is all there for us to use vis a vis adaptation, financing but also with very concrete reform measures which are required,” Aurangzeb said.
“One should never be complacent about the financing because the gap that we talk about is a very big gap but we should at least use the financing that is available for now.”
Pakistan is in the process of restructuring and reorganizing our debt management office in line with global best practices, according to the finance minister.
The South Asian country will soon be launching various funding products in terms of the demand that it has to meet domestically as well as with international investors.
“We will continue to engage the investor community very proactively to get your feedback,” he said. “So stay tuned. You will be hearing more from this space as we go forward.”
Asylum-seekers from Russia, Pakistan and elsewhere arrive at US border to uncertainty
- A thicket of lawsuits, appeals and countersuits have filled the courts as the Trump administration faces off activists who argue against sweeping restrictions
- In a key legal battle, a federal judge is expected to rule on whether courts can review the administration’s use of invasion claims to justify suspending asylum
They arrive at the US border from around the world: Eritrea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Uzbekistan and so many other countries.
They come for asylum, insisting they face persecution for their religion, or sexuality or for supporting the wrong politicians.
For generations, they had been given the chance to make their case to US authorities.
Not anymore.
“They didn’t give us an ICE officer to talk to. They didn’t give us an interview. No one asked me what happened,” said a Russian election worker who sought asylum in the US after he said he was caught with video recordings he made of vote rigging. On Feb. 26, he was deported to Costa Rica with his wife and young son.
On Jan. 20, just after being sworn in for a second term, President Donald Trump suspended the asylum system as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on illegal immigration, issuing a series of executive orders designed to stop what he called the “invasion” of the United States.
What asylum-seekers now find, according to lawyers, activists and immigrants, is a murky, ever-changing situation with few obvious rules, where people can be deported to countries they know nothing about after fleeting conversations with immigration officials while others languish in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
Attorneys who work frequently with asylum-seekers at the border say their phones have gone quiet since Trump took office. They suspect many who cross are immediately expelled without a chance at asylum or are detained to wait for screening under the UN’s convention against torture, which is harder to qualify for than asylum.
“I don’t think it’s completely clear to anyone what happens when people show up and ask for asylum,” said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council.
RESTRICTIONS FACE CHALLENGES IN COURT
A thicket of lawsuits, appeals and countersuits have filled the courts as the Trump administration faces off against activists who argue the sweeping restrictions illegally put people fleeing persecution in harm’s way.
In a key legal battle, a federal judge is expected to rule on whether courts can review the administration’s use of invasion claims to justify suspending asylum. There is no date set for that ruling.
The government says its declaration of an invasion is not subject to judicial oversight, at one point calling it “an unreviewable political question.”
But rights groups fighting the asylum proclamation, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, called it “as unlawful as it is unprecedented” in the complaint filed in a Washington, D.C., federal court.
Illegal border crossings, which soared in the first years of President Joe Biden’s administration, reaching nearly 10,000 arrests per day in late 2024, dropped significantly during his last year in office and plunged further after Trump returned to the White House.
Yet more than 200 people are still arrested daily for illegally crossing the southern US border.
Some of those people are seeking asylum, though it’s unclear if anyone knows how many.
Paulina Reyes-Perrariz, managing attorney for the San Diego office of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said her office sometimes received 10 to 15 calls a day about asylum after Biden implemented asylum restrictions in 2024.
That number has dropped to almost nothing, with only a handful of total calls since Jan. 20.
Plus, she added, lawyers are unsure how to handle asylum cases.
“It’s really difficult to consult and advise with individuals when we don’t know what the process is,” she said.
DOING ‘EVERYTHING RIGHT’
None of this was expected by the Russian man, who asked not to be identified for fear of persecution if he returns to Russia.
“We felt betrayed,” the 36-year-old said. “We did everything right.”
The family had scrupulously followed the rules. They traveled to Mexico in May 2024, found a cheap place to rent near the border with California and waited nearly nine months for the chance to schedule an asylum interview.
On Jan. 14, they got word that their interview would be on Feb 2. On Jan. 20, the interview was canceled.
Moments after Trump took office, US Customs and Border Protection announced it had scrubbed the system used to schedule asylum interviews and canceled tens of thousands of existing appointments.
There was no way to appeal.
The Russian family went to a San Diego border crossing to ask for asylum, where they were taken into custody, he said.
A few weeks later, they were among the immigrants who were handcuffed, shackled and flown to Costa Rica. Only the children were left unchained.
TURNING TO OTHER COUNTRIES TO HOLD DEPORTEES
The Trump administration has tried to accelerate deportations by turning countries like Costa Rica and Panama into “bridges,” temporarily detaining deportees while they await return to their countries of origin or third countries.
Earlier this year, some 200 migrants were deported from the US to Costa Rica and roughly 300 were sent to Panama.
To supporters of tighter immigration controls, the asylum system has always been rife with exaggerated claims by people not facing real dangers. In recent years, roughly one-third to half of asylum applications were approved by judges.
Even some politicians who see themselves as pro-immigration say the system faces too much abuse.
“People around the world have learned they can claim asylum and remain in the US indefinitely to pursue their claims,” retired US Rep. Barney Frank, a longtime Democratic stalwart in Congress, wrote last year in the Wall Street Journal, defending Biden’s tightening of asylum policies amid a flood of illegal immigration.
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
Many of the immigrants they arrived with have left the Costa Rican facility where they were first detained, but the Russian family has stayed. The man cannot imagine going back to Russia and has nowhere else to go.
He and his wife spend their days teaching Russian and a little English to their son. He organizes volleyball games to keep people busy.
He is not angry at the US He understands the administration wanting to crack down on illegal immigration. But, he adds, he is in real danger. He followed the rules and can’t understand why he didn’t get a chance to plead his case.
He fights despair almost constantly, knowing that what he did in Russia brought his family to this place.
“I failed them,” he said. “I think that every day: I failed them.”
‘My son keeps crying’: Pakistani families left in medical crisis as India cancels visas amid conflict
- India, Pakistan hold a fragile, US-brokered truce after nearly three weeks of tensions that took South Asia to the brink of war
- Despite the ceasefire, punitive measures announced by India, such as trade suspension and visa cancelations, remain in place
LAHORE/KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: As Musfira, a seemingly healthy one-and-a-half-year-old girl, plays with the toys on the floor, her mother Salsabeel Safi, 22, tries to catch her attention with a wooden toy car that has watermelon wheels.
It’s a typical picture of a mother playing with her daughter, except they are facing a medical crisis after India canceled most valid visas, including medical visas, issued to Pakistani nationals amid rising tensions between the two nuclear rivals.
“We had applied for an Indian visa in December. It has been four months now, but we didn’t get a visa. Because of the Pakistan-Indian situation our visa has been stopped,” said Safi.
Musfira has no veins between her heart and lungs and her arteries are so severely constricted that she has very poor blood circulation, said Safi. Her heart also has a hole in it. As a result, Musfira’s mother says she frequently turns blue and has to be hospitalized due to insufficient oxygen in her body.
The family has sought help at several hospitals in Pakistan, but was told that the little girl’s condition could not be treated in the country. At the suggestion of doctors they consulted in Pakistan, the family decided to seek surgical intervention in India.
While treatment options for Musfira’s condition are available in other countries, the family felt India was the best choice due to its proximity and affordable health care. They could even travel there by car.
Once she learnt that treatment would cost an estimated $10,000, Safi, who’s a content creator on social media, started raising funds online.
Last December, Musfira’s family applied for their visas after an Indian hospital invited them to seek treatment there, but they were soundly rejected.
“Her condition is deteriorating,” said Safi.
Many Pakistani families have found themselves in the same predicament as India and Pakistan continue to hold a fragile US-brokered ceasefire after nearly three weeks of escalating tensions that took South Asia to the brink of war.
Mohammad Imran and his wife, Nabeela Raaz, an Indian national, traveled from Karachi to India with their 17-year-old son, Mohammad Ayan, who suffers from a spine injury on March 27. When India revoked most visas for Pakistani nationals in late April, they returned to Pakistan on April 27 before Ayan could receive any treatment. Ayan’s mother was not allowed to accompany them back to Pakistan.
“My son keeps crying,” said Imran. “Even I cry at times when my son says, ‘Please call mama here’. I can’t see her coming here anytime soon.”
In Islamabad, Shahid Ali said his two children who suffer from heart disease were forced to return to Pakistan without getting the surgery they desperately needed.
“The Pahalgam incident took place and the Indian government ordered the cancelation of visas in 24 hours,” said Ali.
On April 22, 26 men were killed in an attack targeting Hindus in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings.
The next day, India pulled out of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty regulating the sharing of water from the river and its tributaries with Pakistan.
India also identified two of the three suspected militants in the Pahalgam attack as Pakistanis, although Islamabad denied any role.
On May 7, India launched attacks on what it said were “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir.
Strikes and counter-strikes and a slew of tit-for-tat reprisals followed before US diplomacy and pressure helped the two nations agree to a “full and immediate ceasefire” on May 10.
Despite the truce, punitive measures announced by India, such as trade suspension and visa cancelations, remain in place, according to Indian government sources who spoke to Reuters.
For the families of these Pakistani children, some of whom are hanging on by the thinnest thread, a solution to the latest chaos cannot come sooner.
“We want India and Pakistan to resolve issues between them so that Musfira and several other children like her, whose treatment is due in India, can get visas and get treatment there,” said Musfira’s uncle, Zulkifl Haroon. “So that their lives can be saved.”
