The COVID -19 pandemic and subsequent international travel restrictions have highlighted the issue of British government’s support and help to dual nationals of UK and Pakistan.
In this regard, serious questions have been raised by different people about the extent of consular services and other help available to those dual nationality holders during their visit to Pakistan. While the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) official policy states that during any crisis at overseas, the British government would provide support to its nationals including those having dual nationals, but some sources believed that the lack of understanding of the issue led to some feeling among the British- Pakistanis that they have been snubbed during the coronavirus crisis.
The issue has come into the limelight after reports emerged that thousands of British Pakistanis have been left stranded allegedly by the UK’s government in Pakistan during the coronavirus crisis. This correspondent has been contacted by a number of British Pakistanis with the same issue, one complaining that he had called the FCO in London to get his wife on a UK Government repatriation flight from Islamabad to Manchester. He said his wife was registered with FCO in London on their email updates scheme for UK Citizens. He further claimed that British officials informed him that despite his wife having UK Citizenship and a UK Passport, as she had used her Nadra card to enter Pakistan she would be not counted as a British Citizen, but as a Foreign National by the British Government. One of the criticism made against British High Commission is that they left vulnerable families some of whom requiring medications.
An official of FCO told Daily Times that the UK government would not normally offer support to dual British national in the country of their other nationality (for example, a dual US-British national in the US) or get involved in dealings between them and the authorities of that state. However, he said the government may make an exception to this rule if, having looked at the circumstances of the case, they consider that dual nationals are vulnerable and UK have humanitarian concerns . In the current Covid-19 crisis, he precisely mentioned British High Commission in Islamabad where he said staff working around the clock to offer help and bring the Britons return home since a decision was made to repatriate the British nationals.
When asked for his views on the law concerning dual nationals, international Barrister Khadim Al’Hassan stated that ‘International laws restrains the exercise of dual citizenship. The UK Government, for instance, has no positive obligation to provide diplomatic help, assistance to those who are in their other dual national country, however in exceptional circumstances the British Government has in the past assisted, but do not expect that this will be the normal course’.
However, everyone did not shares the same views of the British Government and some groups of British- Pakistanis still question the strategy of FCO that if they were eligible for help during the crisis which was later provided than why were they being told by the UK foreign office staff that those who used Pakistani Identity documents to enter Pakistan would be counted as a foreign national by the British government. But other considers Covid-19 not as a crisis and agreed with the UK initial position which is consistent with their policy not to assist dual nationals in the other country which they hold nationality. The British government has laid on expatriation flights to many countries swiftly but not to Pakistan which appears to be consistent with their policy. However, once this issue has been raised by the British MPs and Media, they FCO started flights from Pakistan to repatriate the Brits.
Some human rights groups believes that many more people misunderstood the position and are considering whether in the new world order after this world pandemic it is worth holding dual nationality. They are concerned that with no vaccine and scientific knowledge not having answers then this may be a new beginning for us all and travel will not be on the agenda for a little while at least.
The issue of dual nationality has also been highlighted recently when the British Government took the unprecedented decision and followed it through the courts to strip dual nationals of their British Nationality and taking away their British passports. An estimated 37 people have had their British citizenship revoked. Their nationalities include Russian, Somali, Yemeni, Australian, Pakistani, Afghan, Albanian, Egyptian, Lebanese, Sudanese, Vietnamese, Iranian, Iraqi and Nigerian, some even having held British passports from birth.
The British government has successfully stripped Pakistani’s of their British Passports and nationality which has been upheld by the courts in relation to a number of individuals who were released from prison following their convictions for being part of the Rochdale grooming gangs. The individuals Qari Abdul Rauf, Abdul Aziz and Adil Aziz have sought to appeal with the courts rejecting it. The Court of Appeal concluded that the Home Office and Immigration tribunal had not acted unlawfully and were “entitled to find that the deprivation of citizenship in the case of each appellant would be compliant” with the law. According to Barrister Al’Hassan, the law in the UK allows the Home secretary to revoke a person’s British citizenship ‘if it is conducive to public good’. This is a wide discretion and effectively means that dual nationals are always at a risk of their citizenship being revoked if they become involved in serious criminal offences by either country, Al’ Hassan added.
