Foreign students to wanting to study in madrassa in Pakistan must ‘register’. source and source Since the registration process would require personal information and sources of funding, this idea isn’t going over very well with with potential “jihadists” who desire training in these ’schools’.

Pakistan will not cancel the visas of foreign students at Islamic seminaries, but they must register and the government would like them to return to their countries as soon as possible, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said Friday.

The minister added 65 per cent of the roughly 1,800 foreign students have already left Pakistan.

Registration of foreign students at about 13,000 Islamic schools became an explosive issue after most of them - supported by the religion-political alliance the Muttahida Majlise Amal (MMA) - declined to submit to what they called “intrusive registration procedures”.

The registration process requires the seminaries to reveal their sources of financing, be ready for annual audits, and refrain from preaching hate materials.

Many moderate seminaries registered their foreign students after the government made some changes in the registration law, but most of the schools still have reservations about the law.

Ittehad-e-Tanzeemaul Madaris (ITM), an umbrella organization representing all Islamic seminaries has scheduled a meeting of all central members for January 1 to discuss the issue of foreign student expulsions.

The number of such seminaries mushroomed in the 1980s. Most of them trained Islamic militants to wage U.S.-backed “jihad” or holy war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Companion post at Right Truth