K-P police arrests 471 parents for refusing polio vaccine

[waleed3601]

@ashok mourya --> polio vaccine is not haram, that was just bullshit propaganda by that idiot mullah radio when he had some power in tribal areas. these days he's running scared in afghanistan because of zarb e azab and operation khyber.

 

[Dubious]

Pakistan arrests parents for refusing polio vaccine

Pakistani police will only release parents once they have sworn that they will vaccinate their children

Pakistani authorities have conducted their first-ever mass arrest of parents for refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio.

Authorities in Peshawar, in the north-west of the country, detained 471 people and charged them with "endangering public security".

The local government says they will only be freed once they have pledged in writing to vaccinate their children.

The Taliban prohibit vaccinations and have attacked health workers.

The Pakistani government has declared "war" on the disease. "We have decided to deal with the refusal cases with iron hands. Anyone who refuses will be sent to jail," said Riaz Khan Mehsud, deputy commissioner of Peshawar.

Pakistan accounts for the vast majority of polio cases globally and is one of only three countries where it remains endemic.

In 2014, polio cases in the country reached a 14 year high of 306. Nine new cases have been detected so far this year.

In June 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that all international travellers from Pakistan be administered polio drops at airports to prevent its spread.

The Taliban have claimed that the polio vaccination drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.

In November four polio vaccination workers were shot dead in the south-west city of Quetta.


BBC News - Pakistan arrests parents for refusing polio vaccine

Pakistan Polio Push: 471 Parents Arrested for Refusing to Vaccinate Kids

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan has arrested 471 parents for refusing to vaccinate their children against polio amid persistent and violent opposition to the government's nationwide eradication efforts, officials said on Tuesday.

"There were chronic refusals and they were asking other parents as well to refuse polio drops to their children. This was the last option to arrest them," the police commissioner Peshawar police commissioner Riaz Khan Mehsud told NBC News.

Pakistan is one of the last countries where polio, which has been eradicated in the West, is still endemic. The Taliban and some clerics in conservative and lawless strongholds in the northwest of the country have come out against the vaccinations, claiming they are part of a Western plot to sterilize children. Sixty-four people have been assassinated in the militants' drive to prevent vaccinations, according to Reuters, and health teams in parts of the country now only travel with armed guards.

"[The arrests were] the last resort as there was no other option. There is a lot of pressure on the local administration to tackle these refusals," said Pervez Kamal Khan, director general health services of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

Opposition to the campaign gathered strength in 2011 when it emerged that Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani physician, ran a fake vaccination campaign in the garrison city of Abbottabad to collect DNA samples from al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and his family to prove his presence there to the CIA.

Pakistan Polio Push: 471 Parents Arrested for Refusing to Vaccinate Kids - NBC News