Pakistan Prime Minister urges UK immigration not to discriminate
January 29 2010 by Liam Clifford
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani has urged UK immigration not to be discriminatory towards Pakistani people looking to acquire UK visas.
The Pakistan Prime Minister says that the UK should not discriminate against
Pakistani students who want to study in the UK or businessmen who are looking to
work in the UK. The concerns have been voiced in light of figures that show a 41
per cent rejection rate for UK visa applications from Pakistanis. This is
compared to an average rejection rate of just 14 per cent for the rest of the
world, according to a report from the BBC.
Gilani was talking
to UK shadow home secretary Chris Grayling about the issue. He said that
students who had been granted scholarships to allow them to study in the UK were
having their visa applications rejected.
Mr. Gilani called for several
changes to the processing of UK visa applications from Pakistanis. He called for
the processing to be expedited as it took as long as ten weeks to process visas
in some cases. In addition, he asked that the passports of businessmen applying
for UK work permits to be returned to them during the processing to allow them
to travel to other countries while they waited for their visas.
See the latest Immigration News
