On October 2, at least 18 international NGOs working in Pakistan were notified by the Pakistani Interior Ministry to wrap up their activities in the country within 60 days after their applications for registration under the rules regulating presence of foreign-funded aid groups were rejected. The move provoked harsh backlash from NGOs.
"We appreciate positive working and welfare activities of NGO’s but can’t compromise on the national interests and security of the country," Kamran said.
The lawmaker stressed that it was the 2014 deadly terrorist attack on the Army Public School (APS) in the city of Peshawar, which involved foreign militants as well, that made the Interior Ministry devise regulations for international NGOs. She rejected the claims that the recent shutdown orders for some NGOs were made without any reason.
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According to the lawmaker, the shutdown orders were issued only for those NGOs that failed to comply with the law and "were working against the interests of state."
She recalled that the NGOs were initially given three months to review the status.
Earlier in the day, Said Nazir Mohmand, a defense and security analyst at the Pakistani Institute of Policy Studies in Islamabad, told Sputnik that the Pakistani government's decision to expel NGOs was consistent with Islamabad's policy on updating rules governing the presence of foreign-based aid groups in the country and streamlining the aid sector to get rid of NGOs that harbor spies.
"The government’s policy regarding NGOs is being updated and most stringent measures and parameters are laid to remain focused on their activities. The government considers it as one of the course of espionage," the expert said.
Mohmand singled out the case of UK-based and US-funded Save the Children as a warning bell for Islamabad regarding NGOs. Save the Children had what it claimed was an unwitting role in the 2011 operation by US Navy Seals to raid Al Qaeda (terrorist organization banned in Russia) leader Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. Islamabad accused the NGO of "anti-Pakistan" activities and shut down its offices over its involvement in a bogus hepatitis B vaccination program which helped CIA track down bin Laden.
