ISLAMABAD, December 13: Co-chair of All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pakistan Yasmin Qureshi MP has asked the British government to amend its misleading tweet which had wrongly likened the sanctions on Myanmar military and Pakistani individual for their human rights violations.
On International Human Rights Day (December 10, 2021), the UK announced new sanctions against the Myanmar military for their “continued suppression of the civilian population and for serious human rights violations.” The UK had also sanctioned a former commander in the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, who helped orchestrate a 2017 bombing in Pakistan. However, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) tweeted the subject with a headline “New UK sanctions to target human rights violations and abuses in Myanmar and Pakistan.”
In a letter to UK’s Minister of State for Asia at FCDO Amanda Milling, Yasmin Qureshi MP, though welcomed the sanctions imposed on Furqan Bangalzai who helped to orchestrate a bombing in Pakistan.
“I am however disappointed to see that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office tweeted: “New UK Sanctions to target Human Rights violations and abuses in Myanmar and Pakistan.
She explained that the extent of sanctions imposed on Myanmar could not in any way be likened to those imposed on an individual member of a terrorist organisation that happened to be based in Pakistan.
“Why then does this tweet suggest that Pakistan that has been sanctioned for human rights violations? In doing so it has created a misleading, clickbait. -DNA