‘UK immigration laws discriminatory’
By: Asif Mahmood
LONDON — The recent changes introduced to the immigration laws by the British government are discriminatory and unjust for Pakistani students.
This was the outcome of a seminar ‘New British immigration laws and their effects on Pakistani students’, held at Oxford University under the aegis of Nawa-i-Waqt Group of Newspapers.
The National Union of Pakistani Students (NUPS), a representative body of Pakistani students in the UK, and the immigration experts termed the new immigration laws discriminatory while the members of the European and UK parliaments also expressed their reservations over these laws.
NUPS Director General and an Oxford student Qasim Raza declared the recent changes in immigration laws as an injustice to the Pakistanis. He said he had received numerous complaints that undue delay was caused in the issuance of visas resulting in loss of an academic year of a number of students.
He demanded of the Pakistani government to set up a network on High Commission level so that Pakistanis coming to the UK for getting education might be protected from falling prey to fake challenges.
Hussain Nadeem, the co-chairman of the Internal Affairs of Pakistan Young Leaders Council, strongly criticised the foreign policy of Pakistan, saying that the foreign policy was under the influence of the Army owing to tensions in Pak-India relations and war on terror and it would take time to neutralise this influence.
At this stage, the students sitting in the hall strongly termed the army interference in the foreign policy as a fact.
Hira Omar, the chairperson of the Education Committee of the Pakistan Young Leaders Conference and a student of St John’s College of the Oxford University, said that English was not that necessary to get education in the UK, but she stressed that Pakistani students coming to the UK must promote their proficiency of English Language. Hira demanded of the Government of Pakistan to bring necessary changes to the curriculum for the purpose.
NUPSA head of media and a student of London School of Economics Faizan Rana said that Pak govt must take necessary steps for coordination with their British counterparts to prevent human trafficking so that the innocent Pakistani students who had fallen victim to fake institutions could be redeemed.
Faizan opined that harsh immigration laws for Pak students and incidents like that of Dr Aafia Siddiqui had caused intensity in the trend of terror.
He wondered why Pakistanis were subjected to such a hard search through scanners at the airports and different tests including DNA and fingerprints for weeks are taken while Pakistan is also an ally of the West in their war on terror.
Source: The Nation
Date:3/1/2010
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