World
Petition titled 'Remove Pakistan from Red List' gets over 100,000 signatures
London: An online petition titled ‘Remove Pakistan from Red List’ gets over 100,000 signatures on Thursday.
According to details, the British Parliament considers all petitions that cross more than 100,000 signatures for a debate in the parliament.
A new travel announcement made by British Government has seen countries such as United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, India and Bahrain moving from the Red List to the Amber List while Germany, Austria, and Norway are among the seven countries to be added to the Green List.
Additionally, Slovenia, Slovakia, Latvia and Romania will all be added to England's green list.
The UK operates a "traffic light" system for international travel, with low-risk countries rated green for quarantine-free travel, medium risk countries rated amber, and red countries requiring arrivals to spend 10 days in isolation in a hotel.
Pakistan was placed on the red list in early April and India followed on April 19 after cases in both countries surged due to delta variant.
Two MPs have demanded an explanation for why Pakistan has been “punished” and remains on the travel red list.
Labour MPs Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) and Naz Shah (Bradford West) have both written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, questioning why the South Asian country was still on the red list, when neighbouring India, which has higher Covid rates, has been moved to the amber list.
They accused the Government of “playing politics” with the travel alert system, and said it was only opening up the UK to nations “it stands to benefit from economically”.
British lawmakers including Labour MPs Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) and Naz Shah (Bradford West) have criticized their government's decision to keep Pakistan on its "red list" for international travel but promote India to the "amber list" despite coronavirus situation in India being more serious and threat of delta variant looming large there.
They accused the UK government of “playing politics” and said that it is not for the first that UK has exhibited "callous behaviour" in managing its quarantine traffic light system.
"The government is seeking to penalise Pakistan in favour of potential economic benefit. This is clear and blatant discrimination towards Pakistan.To add insult to injury, the hotel quarantine cost is set to increase by between £450-£800, to a total of £2,200," Yasmin Qureshi tweeted.