November 30, 2016

Lahore and Sindh High Courts also stay deportation of Turk teachers, families

A week after the Peshawar High Court (PHC) passed a stay order preventing the government from deporting PakTurk school officials, the Lahore High Court (LHC) and Sindh High Court (SHC) also followed suit and issued notices to the Interior Ministry.

The interior ministry on Nov 14 cancelled the visas of Turkish nationals employed as administrative and teaching staff in all the 26 PakTurk schools and gave them three-days to leave the country.

LHC Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza on Tuesday stopped deportation of more than 100 teachers of the PakTurk Foundation.

Citing the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, the petitioners said the prevalent position is that none of the migrant workers and members of their families should be subjected to the measures of the collective expulsion.

Meanwhile, the SHC also stayed the government from evicting the Turkish teachers belonging to PakTurk Schools in Hyderabad and Jamshoro from Pakistan.

Nine teachers of the schools in Hyderabad and Jamshoro districts, which have an enrollment of around 1,000 students, are among the 11 petitioners. They urged the high court to declare the government’s directives ‘illegal, perverse and void ab initio’.

“No punitive action should be taken against the petitioners,” reads the order given by the SHC Hyderabad Circuit Bench of Justice Salahuddin Pahwar and Justice Muhammad Iqbal Mehar.

The bench fixed hearing of the case on Dec 20 while putting the deputy attorney general on notice to represent the interior ministry. The petitioners’ counsel advocate Ayatollah Khawaja apprised the SHC about the PHC’s order dated Nov 23, appealing for the same relief to his clients.

Published on The Express Tribune, 30 November 2016, Wednesday