KARACHI: Federal Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari on Monday criticised the United Kingdom for retaining Pakistan on its travel ‘red list’, rejecting the British government’s claim that Pakistan authorities didn’t share with it the country’s Covid-19 data on vaccination and testing.

The UK operates a “traffic light” system for international travel, with people from low-risk countries rated green for quarantine-free travel, medium risk countries rated amber and the people from red countries requiring arrivals to spend 10 days in isolation in a hotel.

According to a Dawn.com report, Pakistan was placed on the red list in early April and India on April 19 due to rising number of cases.

In a recent update issued by the British government, India, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE were moved to the amber list from Aug 8 (Sunday) while Pakistan remained on the red list — a move that was also criticised by some British lawmakers.

The minister shared a report from The News on Twitter, according to which, the UK cited the lack of vaccination and testing data as the reason for retaining Pakistan on the red list.

“Ridiculous! UK govt, dominated by Indophiles & despite globally documented India’s continuing disastrous handling of Covid pandemic, moved India to Amber List but keeps Pak on Red; then under pressure from Opp MPs gives feeble excuse Pak didn’t share data,” the minister said in the tweet.

“Fact is UK govt never asked for data but it is publicly available as NCOC has the most centralised & daily updated data bases anywhere & data shared with UK HC. Earlier UK govt had given another excuse — that more Pak passengers than Indians tested positive! Shifting goalposts!,” she said in another tweet.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2021