Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's special assistant Dr Faisal Sultan wrote to the United Kingdom health secretary Sajid Javid comparing the Covid-19 situation of Pakistan and other countries including India, after UK allowed flights from India while barring the ones coming from Pakistan.
Soon after that, Pakistan's human rights minister Shireen Mazari tweeted about it and called UK’s decision as ‘partial’.
Mazari wrote, “Reply from Dr Faisal Sultan to UK Health Secretary in response to UK govt's "explanation" (C thread) on why Pak is on Red while India has moved to amber! The table exposes claims of UK govt that UK decision based on science & data! Clearly it has been a purely political decision!”
“UK's Conservative govt with a strong Indophiles' presence playing discriminatory politics against Pakistan on Covid. The UK statement to which Dr Faisal has responded exposing its claims!” she added to her tweet thread.
The UK had placed both India and Pakistan on its red list not allowing passengers from these countries into UK. However, from August 8 the restrictions were lifted for India and UK moved India to its amber list. These restrictions were imposed due to the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
Replying to Pakistan, the UK government said, “In Pakistan, the combination of a deteriorating epidemiological situation, combined with low testing rates and limited genomic surveillance, presents a high risk that an outbreak of a new variant, or existing VoC, will not be identified before it is imported to the UK.”
"Pakistan has no interest in allowing those of its nationals who pose a health risk to other societies to travel abroad, any more than allowing potential threats to public health entry within its jurisdiction," Dr Faisal wrote back to the UK government.