Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Over seventy thousand Pakistani citizens applied for asylum in various countries in last five year including 8974 in Greece, 277 in United States, 800 in Indonesia, 3000 in Malaysia, 1489 in Honk Kong, 50 in Brazil while approximately 55000 applications of asylum are also pending in South Africa and Germany.

In a written reply of the question asked by Syed Imran Ahmad Shah, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the National Assembly on Wednesday that European countries, Australia and New Zealand do not share information regarding foreign prisoners, illegal migrants and asylum seekers due to strict privacy laws.

However, the ministry shared the information acquired from the other host authorities of the respective countries according to which around 25,000 to 30,000 Pakistani applied for political asylum to regularise their stay in South Africa in last five years.

“The Germen authorities do not share the data of asylum seekers with country of origin or diplomat. However, an estimated number of Pakistani who applied for asylum is around 30,000 but the success level is less than 3 percent”, the replay further stated. According to the figures, 8974 Pakistanis in Greece, 277 in United States, 800 in Indonesia, 1489 in Honk Kong and 50 in Brazil applied for the asylum while a single individual with his family had also sought asylum in Iraq.

The asylum seekers stated different reasons in their applications however most of them sighted threat to their life due to family feuds, poverty, joblessness, religious prosecutions, ethnic discrimination, poor law and order situation in Pakistan as core reasons for asylum or refugee status. It is pertinent to mention here that these Pakistani citizens reached in aforementioned countries illegally and most of them applied to legalize them but in most cases just to prolong their stay abroad. “It is not necessary that reasons stated in asylum applications are always true but the same are self-created and they vary country to country according to their respective laws”, an immigration expert Usman Chaudhry told the Daily Times.

Published in Daily Times, December 21^st 2017.