Islamabad: The Consulate of Pakistan in Jeddah on Saturday contradicted an ongoing social media campaign alleging that the Pakistani citizens staying in Makkah governorate of Saudi Arabia were being arrested and repatriated.
In a press release, the Consulate clarified that upon being contacted the Saudi authorities apprised them that throughout the year, they carried out such drives with varying intensities against the illegal expatriates of all nationalities for their arrest and onward repatriation.
The latest such drive was launched a week ago which focused the people without residency permit (Iqamah), expired permit, illegal residents, and those working in the fields other than entitled by their work permit.
In this course, around 400 Pakistani nationals had been brought to Shumaisi Deportation Centre during last three days. “Dubbing this campaign solely targeting Pakistanis is completely false. The propagation of such reports on social media has created unnecessary panic in the Pakistani community,” the consulate said. Even some social media circles were also giving a political angle to this campaign and avoidance of such baseless and irresponsible statements was in the interest of Pak-Saudi brotherly relations.
“We appeal to the Pakistani community in Saudi Arabia to stay calm and ignore such social media campaign,” the consulate said and assured that they were in constant contact with the Saudi authorities to take all out steps for protection of Pakistani expatriates’ rights.
