LONDON: Prime Minister Theresa May on Tuesday personally apologized to Caribbean leaders after her government threatened to deport some of the hundreds of thousands of people who emigrated to Britain from the region in the 1950s and 1960s.
At a meeting in Downing Street, May told representatives of the 12 Caribbean members of the Commonwealth that she took the treatment of the so-called Windrush generation “very seriously.”
“I want to apologize to you today. Because we are genuinely sorry for any anxiety that has been caused,” she told the hastily-convened gathering.
She added: “I want to dispel any impression that my government is in some sense clamping down on Commonwealth citizens, particularly those from the Caribbean.”
The government has faced outrage for its treatment of people who came to Britain between 1948 — when the ship Empire Windrush brought over the first group of West Indian immigrants — and the early 1970s.
They and their parents were invited to help rebuild Britain after World War II and with many of them legally British — they were born while their home countries were still colonies — they were given indefinite leave to remain.
But those who failed to get their papers in order are now being treated as illegal, which limits their access to work and health care and puts them at risk of deportation if they cannot provide evidence of their life in Britain.
The row, which one MP called a “national shame,” has been hugely embarrassing as it coincides with this week’s meeting of the 53 Commonwealth heads of government in London.
More than 50,000 people could be affected by the government’s immigration crackdown.
British PM apologizes to Caribbean leaders over deportation row
British PM apologizes to Caribbean leaders over deportation row
Peshawar church attack haunts Christians at Christmas
- The 2013 suicide attack at All Saints Church killed 113 worshippers, leaving lasting scars on survivors
- Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to protect religious minorities on Christmas, act against any injustice
PESHAWAR: After passing multiple checkpoints under the watchful eyes of snipers stationed overhead, hundreds of Christians gathered for a Christmas mass in northwest Pakistan 12 years after suicide bombers killed dozens of worshippers.
The impact of metal shards remain etched on a wall next to a memorial bearing the names of those killed at All Saints Church in Peshawar, in the violence-wracked province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“Even today, when I recall that day 12 years ago, my soul trembles,” Natasha Zulfiqar, a 30-year-old housewife who was wounded in the attack along with her parents, told AFP on Thursday.
Her right wrist still bears the scar.
A militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on September 22, 2013, when 113 people were killed, according to a church toll.
“There was blood everywhere. The church lawn was covered with bodies,” Zulfiqar said.
Christians make up less than two percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people and have long faced discrimination in the conservative Muslim country, often sidelined into low-paying jobs and sometimes the target of blasphemy charges.
Along with other religious minorities, the community has often been targeted by militants over the years.
Today, a wall clock inside All Saints giving the time of the blast as 11:43 am is preserved in its damaged state, its glass shattered.
“The blast was so powerful that its marks are still visible on this wall — and those marks are not only on the wall, but they are also etched into our hearts as well,” said Emmanuel Ghori, a caretaker at the church.
Addressing a Christmas ceremony in the capital Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed to protect religious minorities.
“I want to make it clear that if any injustice is done to any member of a minority, the law will respond with full force,” he said.
For Azzeka Victor Sadiq, whose father was killed and mother wounded in the blasts, “The intensity of the grief can never truly fade.”
“Whenever I come to the church, the entire incident replays itself before my eyes,” the 38-year-old teacher told AFP.
