Ahead of FATF meet, communities living in exile in France to hold protest against Pak-China nexus

Ahead of the scheduled meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), dissidents living in exile in France have planned to hold a protest on February 20 against Pakistan-China nexus in terror financing, money laundering and financial corruption in Pakistan.

Taking to Twitter, Taha Siddiqui, a Pakist journalist, who is now living in exile, said: "On 20 Feb, Baloch, Pashtun, Uyghur, Tibet, HongKong exiled dissidents will hold protest plus conference outside @FATFNews HQ in Paris to expose Pak-China nexus. FIRST time those wronged by Pakistan and China come together in France."

FATF members will meet from February 22 to 25 to decide the future of Pakistan in the global arena.

"As the FATF members meet from 22nd to 25th February 2021 to review Pakistan, we will protest in front of the FATF headquarters to remind the international monitoring body of its commitments to stop terror financing, money laundering and financial corruption in Pakistan and its ally China," Siddiqui shared a poster on Twitter as saying.

"The FATF must hold Pakistan accountable and not give it a free pass because of China's pressure and economic blackmail of the West. Following the protest, Baloch, Pashtun, Uyghur, Tibet, and Hong Kong community orgsers will hold a private conference at the DISSIDENT club to decide on a joint future plan of action," it added.

In October, the FATF decided that Pakistan will continue to be on its grey list and asked it to continue to work on implementing an action plan to address its strategic deficiencies including demonstrating that its law enforcement agencies are identifying and investigating the widest range of terrorist financing activity and demonstrating that prosecutions result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions.

Pakistan has been on the FATF's grey list since June 2018 and the government was given a final warning in February 2020 to complete the 27 action points by June in the same year.

Pakistan is facing the difficult task of clearing its name from the FATF grey list. As things stand, Islamabad is finding it difficult to shield terror perpetrators and implement the FATF action plan at the same time.

( With inputs from ANI )