Many religious organisations and charities, including some that have been banned by the government, are registered under the same law that governs NGOs working in the development sector or for human rights causes. Technically, the latter are becoming collateral damage in the war against terror financing. The damage, however, is not unintentional. Instead of making any attempt to separate NGOs from entities involved in terror financing, the government is trying to settle some imagined score with the NGO sector as a whole. This is not something new though its intensity is unprecedented. Successive governments have sought to delegitimise NGOs by promoting the same rhetoric that conservative religious groups espouse. The organisations working for regional peace are dubbed anti-state and unpatriotic. Those active against child labour are accused of undermining Pakistan’s economy. And the ones championing equal rights for women are alleged to be working on a western agenda that runs ‘contrary’ to our religious and cultural traditions.
Tahir Mehdi, 'Why NGOs in Pakistan are at the brink of extinction', Herald
