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Pakistan has told at least 10 foreign-funded aid groups to close, an umbrella agency said on Wednesday, including a charity founded and funded by hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, the group said.
Pakistan has toughened its stance towards domestic and international non-governmental groups in recent years, accusing some of using their work as a cover for espionage.
In January, it ordered about a dozen groups working on women’s issues and human rights to halt their operations.
A representative of the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), which represents 63 international aid groups, said the Ministry of Interior had issued 10 of its members “letters of rejection”, meaning their applications to register had been rejected.
The forum did not identify the 10 groups but two international groups, the Pakistani branch of the Soros’ charity the Open Society Foundations, and ActionAid, said they had been told they had to close.
“We obviously find what has happened both disappointing and surprising, and are urgently seeking clarification,” the executive director of the Open Society’s Pakistani office, Saba Khattak, said in a statement.
The group had spent $37 million on grants and relief assistance in Pakistan since 2005, she said. It’s closure is being considered significant according to some observers given Soros’ headline making newsworthiness including the latest one in which the harsh critic of Donald Trump is accused of funding the president’s sexual harassment accusers.
According to their website, the mission of Open Society Foundations is “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people.”
Soros is reputed to be a champion of globalism, capitalism, and progressivism. By the early 2000s, he had become one of the top funders of the Democratic Party in USA, according to a report in The Atlantic, and his organization would now rank as the second largest behind the Gates Foundation.
The interior ministry did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment on OSF’s rejection to operate in Pakistan.
However, the ministry, in a letter to one of the 10 groups and seen by the news agency, said its registration application had been denied.
“Wind up operations/activities of above said INGO within 60 days,” the ministry said in the letter.
It did give a reason why the group had to stop its work.
The ministry lists 139 international non-governmental organisations (INGO) on its website that have submitted registration applications, of which 72 are still being processed.
There is no list of those whose applications have been denied.
“During the lengthy INGO registration process we provided all the information and documents required and are confident we comply with all necessary rules and regulations,” ActionAid country director Iftikhar Nizami said in a statement.
This year, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres was ordered to stop work at three facilities in violence-plagued ethnic Pashtun areas bordering Afghanistan, although the interior ministry lists the group as an approved INGO.
http://pkonweb.com/pakistan-orders-george-soros-foundation-other-aid-groups-to-close/
Pakistan has toughened its stance towards domestic and international non-governmental groups in recent years, accusing some of using their work as a cover for espionage.
In January, it ordered about a dozen groups working on women’s issues and human rights to halt their operations.
A representative of the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), which represents 63 international aid groups, said the Ministry of Interior had issued 10 of its members “letters of rejection”, meaning their applications to register had been rejected.
The forum did not identify the 10 groups but two international groups, the Pakistani branch of the Soros’ charity the Open Society Foundations, and ActionAid, said they had been told they had to close.
“We obviously find what has happened both disappointing and surprising, and are urgently seeking clarification,” the executive director of the Open Society’s Pakistani office, Saba Khattak, said in a statement.
The group had spent $37 million on grants and relief assistance in Pakistan since 2005, she said. It’s closure is being considered significant according to some observers given Soros’ headline making newsworthiness including the latest one in which the harsh critic of Donald Trump is accused of funding the president’s sexual harassment accusers.
According to their website, the mission of Open Society Foundations is “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable and open to the participation of all people.”
Soros is reputed to be a champion of globalism, capitalism, and progressivism. By the early 2000s, he had become one of the top funders of the Democratic Party in USA, according to a report in The Atlantic, and his organization would now rank as the second largest behind the Gates Foundation.
The interior ministry did not respond to requests by Reuters for comment on OSF’s rejection to operate in Pakistan.
However, the ministry, in a letter to one of the 10 groups and seen by the news agency, said its registration application had been denied.
“Wind up operations/activities of above said INGO within 60 days,” the ministry said in the letter.
It did give a reason why the group had to stop its work.
The ministry lists 139 international non-governmental organisations (INGO) on its website that have submitted registration applications, of which 72 are still being processed.
There is no list of those whose applications have been denied.
“During the lengthy INGO registration process we provided all the information and documents required and are confident we comply with all necessary rules and regulations,” ActionAid country director Iftikhar Nizami said in a statement.
This year, medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres was ordered to stop work at three facilities in violence-plagued ethnic Pashtun areas bordering Afghanistan, although the interior ministry lists the group as an approved INGO.
http://pkonweb.com/pakistan-orders-george-soros-foundation-other-aid-groups-to-close/
