Amnesty International’s criticism of Pakistan over Afghan medical students raises legitimate humanitarian questions, particularly concerning women who may be unable to continue higher education after returning to Afghanistan. But humanitarian concern should not be allowed to erase a basic principle of international law. A sovereign state retains the authority to regulate the entry, residence and legal status of foreign nationals within its territory. Human rights law places limits on how that authority is exercised. It does not abolish it.
The immediate controversy followed directions concerning Afghan nationals studying in Pakistani medical and dental institutions. Amnesty International’s South Asia office described the decision as “patently discriminatory and arbitrary” and argued that Pakistan should allow Afghan students, particularly women, to complete their education.
The humanitarian argument deserves consideration. The legal argument, however, requires considerably greater precision
Foreign students do not acquire an unconditional right of residence merely because they have secured admission to an educational institution. Pakistan’s official immigration rules provide a specific study visa system. The Directorate General of Immigration and Passports states that study visas are issued after the required NOCs and security clearances, while foreign students studying in Pakistan are expected to possess the appropriate study visa or extension. The Higher Education Commission similarly explains that foreign students obtain admission first and their institutions then process the necessary NOC for the student visa procedure. Admission and lawful immigration status are therefore related but legally distinct matters.
This distinction is especially important in the present dispute. The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council said on September 10 that its review concerned documentation, registration and immigration compliance rather than a general prohibition on foreign medical education. According to the Council, more than 200 Afghan students were identified during the exercise, only 22 were registered with PM&DC, while the status of another 176 remained under verification.
These are regulatory claims that should themselves be transparently verified, but they cannot simply be ignored when assessing the legality of individual cases
Where a student possesses valid admission, registration and immigration documents, the state should respect those documents and provide fair procedures before taking adverse action. Where documentation has expired, the relevant authorities should decide pending extension applications promptly. Where identity documents or educational records are alleged to have been forged, the allegation must be proved through lawful investigation and due process. Fraud, if established, cannot be converted into an entitlement merely because education is involved. At the same time, no individual should be labelled fraudulent merely because a wider verification exercise is underway.
Pakistan’s authority in this area also has a clear domestic statutory foundation. Section 3 of the Foreigners Act, 1946 empowers the federal government to prohibit, regulate or restrict the entry, departure, presence or continued stay of foreigners in Pakistan. That power is neither unusual nor uniquely Pakistani.
Immigration control is an ordinary function of states throughout the international system
Amnesty’s invocation of international human rights law therefore needs qualification. Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not create an unlimited right for every foreign national to remain in another country. It provides procedural safeguards for an alien who is lawfully present and who faces expulsion, requiring a decision reached in accordance with law and, subject to specified national-security circumstances, an opportunity for review.
The UN Human Rights Committee has gone further in explaining this provision. Its interpretation states that Article 13 specifically protects aliens lawfully within a state’s territory and that domestic law governing entry and residence is relevant in determining that status. It also observes that illegal entrants or people who remain after their authorization expires are generally outside the particular protection of Article 13, although disputes about whether a person’s stay is lawful must themselves be dealt with fairly. That is considerably more nuanced than suggesting that the language of human rights automatically defeats immigration enforcement.
None of this means Pakistan possesses unlimited discretion. International obligations concerning non-refoulement, protection against torture, equality, due process and other fundamental rights continue to matter. The vulnerability of Afghan women is particularly serious because Taliban restrictions have effectively closed much of higher education to women. A responsible Pakistani policy should therefore distinguish between undocumented entrants, students awaiting visa decisions, properly documented students approaching graduation and people able to demonstrate a genuine protection risk.
Lawful immigration enforcement and humanitarian discretion are not mutually exclusive
There is also a genuine legal question now before Pakistan’s own courts. Afghan students have challenged the PM&DC directives in the Lahore High Court, arguing that the medical regulator lacks the authority to terminate their education or order their return. That challenge should be decided by the courts on the basis of statute, administrative competence, individual documentation and constitutional protections. The existence of judicial review itself demonstrates why slogans from either side should not substitute for legal analysis.
Amnesty International has every right to question Pakistani policy, document humanitarian consequences and demand safeguards. Pakistan has an equally legitimate right to challenge Amnesty when its criticism appears to collapse the distinction between the right to education and the separate legal requirements governing a foreign national’s residence.
The better argument is therefore not that human rights cease at Pakistan’s border. They do not. It is that international human rights law operates alongside lawful immigration control, not in place of it. Before accusing Pakistan of acting outside international norms, Amnesty International’s South Asia office should engage with the complete legal framework: valid immigration status, domestic statutory authority, procedural protections, individual circumstances and genuine protection risks. Advocacy becomes more persuasive when international law is applied in full rather than selectively.
