Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s former vice president, has condemned the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s decision to stop some Afghan students and doctors from continuing their studies and to revoke their practice licences, saying the move was based on false reports.<\/p>\n
Referring to the presence of Afghan citizens in Pakistan over several decades, he stressed that Afghan doctors and healthcare workers have never posed a threat to Pakistan’s security. According to him, targeting this group with a security-oriented approach is unjustifiable.<\/p>\n
Saleh also criticised Islamabad’s treatment of Afghan refugees and students, saying the Pakistani government should, instead of restricting medical colleges, examine the role of religious schools that influence extremist currents, including Haqqania in Akora Khattak and some seminaries in Karachi.<\/p>\n
He also criticised what he described as Pakistani security institutions’ conflation of militant groups and academic staff, adding that if the presence of Afghan medical students were considered a security threat, why were they granted study permits and educational scholarships in the first place?<\/p>\n
The move comes as Pakistan has increased pressure on Afghan refugees and students in recent months. Following insecurity and militant attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, the Pakistani government has also carried out a campaign to expel undocumented foreigners and imposed visa restrictions on Afghan students.<\/p>\n
These policies have previously drawn criticism from human rights groups and several Afghan political figures. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council is the body responsible for regulating and overseeing the education and professional practice of doctors and dentists in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amrullah Saleh condemns Pakistan’s decision to block Afghan medical students and revoke licences, saying it is based on false reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}