Pakistan questions inclusion in UK’s ‘red list’ of travel ban countries

ISLAMABAD: In the wake of the United Kingdom’s decision to add Pakistan to its red list of travel ban countries, Minister for Planning and Development, Asad Umar, on Saturday questioned whether the move was “based on science or foreign policy”.

Pakistan, The Philippines, Kenya and Bangladesh were added to England’s “red list” of countries under a travel ban as of 4am on April 9, the Department for Transport said on Friday. It means passengers arriving from or who have transited through these countries will be banned from entering unless they are a British or Irish national or are a resident in the UK. The latest restrictions take the total number of countries on England’s red list to 39.

In a tweet, Umar said: “Every country has a right to take decisions to safeguard the health of their citizens. However, the recent decision by UK govt to add some countries including Pakistan on the red list raises a legitimate question whether choice of countries is based on science or foreign policy.”

Accompanying his tweet, Umar posted a picture of a letter written by Labour MP Naz Shah addressed to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, from whom she asked “what scientific data is any decision being led by” with regards to Pakistan’s inclusion into the red list.

Earlier, Shah herself tweeted a picture of the same letter with the accompanying text: “Why aren’t countries which have significant more cases, including the South African variant, not on the red list too? Why Pakistan and not France which has 10 times more cases. I’ve been raising this for weeks and still no answers from @MattHancock or @DominicRaab?”

In her letter, the MP from Bradford West said: “According to recent available data for the last seven days France, Germany and India have substantially higher numbers of infections per 100,000.” She then listed the cases, with Pakistan having 13 cases per 100,000 people, while UK itself has 54, Bangladesh 15, Germany 137, Kenya 17, France 403, and India 24. She also noted that the South African variant is not a concern in Pakistan, whereas this is not the case for example in France and other countries. “This begs the question, why hasn’t the government extended the red list France, Germany and India?”

Shah said given the data, it would be fair to conclude the “government doesn’t have a coherent strategy in dealing with the red list” and “the government isn’t serious about protecting the British public as its [sic] applying decisions led by politics not data”. She accused the government of not making decisions based on science or data, and “knowingly and consciously discriminating against Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora community”.

The development came as Pakistan continued to grapple with the third wave of the coronavirus, with active cases as of Saturday totalling 58,500 after 4,723 more cases were confirmed, while 84 deaths raised the death toll to 14,697. Total cases were 682,888.

In vaccine related news, private sector hospitals began administering the Russia-developed Sputnik vaccine for sale beginning late Friday night