This whole episode will take its place in the British (empire and) state’s long history of discrimination, indifference and neglect towards its POC citizens and its differential approach to their welfare and wellbeing vis a vis that of white citizens https://twitter.com/thebrownhijabi/status/1245323768609865728

For the high commission to ask and expect @thebrownhijabi to essentially do their work for them begs so many questions.. not just about the state’s attitudes towards British Pakistanis but lack of preparedness for this *very predictable* situation!

The 2011 census records 1.1 million Pakistanis living in England and Wales - the largest single ethnic minority, at 2% of the overall E&W population. It is inexcusable that the FCO did not have Brits in Pakistan high up on their list of people *they* shd reach out to with support

It is also inexcusable how long this story has dragged on for with lacklustre responses from the FCO and BHC. I dread to think who wd have looked out for those stranded if it hadn’t been for @thebrownhijabi’s assiduous effort and initiative in highlighting the situation.

The state has a duty to its citizens who are stranded abroad during a pandemic - this much, I hope, is in controversial.
But constant generic messaging that elusive and exorbitantly priced commercial flights are/are not available is a neglectful and heartless of disdain towards..

people who are already traumatised, vulnerable and deeply distressed. Public debates in the uk about structural racism are never in short supply, we need to acknowledge and be alert to the many forms that discrimination, othering and exclusion can take.

It’s not just the harrowing ease with which citizenship is now arbitrarily deprived from Muslim brits, with no transparency.. the state choosing to do nothing, to repeatedly put out useless and insulting messages re: unobtainable commercial flights, to the way it treats...

activists who have done their job for them.. all the while (quite rightly) talking about chartering flights for stranded brits in other parts of the world - who would question that this is unequal citizenship?