An end to the schooling of zealots.

last updated 8 January 2015

Gaza Strip

Editorial

Goodbye to the foreigners—and good riddance, said the Islamabad News in an editorial. President Pervez Musharraf’s announcement that he would deport all foreigners studying Islamic theology in Pakistan’s madrasas is a necessary step. It’s a pity that he didn’t do this back in January 2002, when he “launched his campaign against extremism” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Of course, those terrorists were mostly Saudis, trained in Afghanistan. The terrorists who struck London on 7/7, though, were mostly Pakistani-Brits who attended madrasas here. That’s why it is so crucial that the ban on foreigners apply to Pakistanis who have dual citizenship elsewhere. Even if there are only a few thousand students from abroad in our religious seminaries, and even if many are poor Afghan refugees, that “is still too large a presence of ultra-religious foreign individuals.” It is these extremist types who have given Pakistan a “global notoriety” it does not deserve. Most Pakistanis are resolutely moderate and secular. We know the heads of madrasas will try to resist this order to expel foreign students. The rest of Pakistan, though, must give its “full support.”