The Pakistani government shut down the offices of international aid group Save the Children in Islamabad, saying it broke its own charter.
Authorities locked the gate of the offices on Thursday night and asked employees to leave.
They also told Pakistani employees that the government wanted all foreign nationals working with the charity to leave the nation within 15 days.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
Pakistani Minister of the Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Friday said that the non-governmental organization (NGO) violated the charter under which it was allowed to operate in Pakistan.
“No NGO will be allowed to work against the interests of Pakistan,” he told reporters.
In a statement, Save the Children confirmed that its Islamabad office had been closed by the government.
“Save the Children was not served any notice to this effect. We strongly object to this action and are raising our serious concerns at the highest levels,” it said, adding that the group has worked in Pakistan for more than 35 years and that it has 1,200 employees nationwide — none a foreign national.
The US Department of State also expressed concern over Pakistan’s move.
US Department of State spokesman John Kirby late on Friday said that Save the Children was one of many such organizations that had long operated with transparency and in close coordination with Pakistan’s government.
He said Pakistan’s international development partners respect the need for full transparency from international NGOs about their activities within the country.
“For that reason, we urge the Government of Pakistan to standardize and streamline a transparent process that will allow international NGOs, including Save the Children, to work legally in Pakistan,” he said.
Save the Children’s Pakistan operations have been under government scrutiny due to a local belief that the organization was somehow connected to the May 2, 2011, killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. A vaccination campaign run by a Pakistani doctor was used by the US Central Intelligence Agency to obtain DNA samples in the city of Abbottabad, where bin Laden lived.
A Save the Children employee in Islamabad told reporters that the doctor, Shakil Afridi, had twice attended training workshops organized by Save the Children in 2009 and 2010 to train Pakistani doctors about the healthcare needs of children and mothers.
“That was the only link of Dr Shakil Afridi with Save the Children. He was among more than 1,000 doctors who were trained by us about the healthcare of mothers and children,” he said.
The employee spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters on the record.
He said a government commission formed to investigate bin Laden’s killing questioned the group about the purpose of Afridi’s visits to Save the Children and that the group had fully satisfied the commission’s concerns.
He said the commission’s report was never made public, but “we had unofficially been told that Save the Children has been absolved of links to Dr Shakil Afridi.”
The group said that last year, programs in health, education and food security reached more than 4 million children and their families.
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