'Pakistan would be doomed if it gets blacklisted': Pak 'influencer' cries for help on Twitter
Oct 11, 2020
Karachi [Pakistan], October 11 : As Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is all set to decide the fate of Pakistan grey list status later this month, a Pakistani "influencer" is beseeching the general public to tweet hashtags so that their country, despite harbouring terrorists, can escape blacklisting by the Paris-based body.
Waqar Zaka, who according to his Twitter handle is an influencer and a resident of Karachi, has posted several tweets and videos in last one week, appealing to people and Pakistani celebrities to post tweets under hashtag #FATFWhiteListPakistan.
At the time of filing the report, he had over 3.25 lakh followers on Twitter including several Pakistani political leaders and Chinese diplomat Lijian Zhao.
In one of the videos that he posted on Saturday, Zaka said that Pakistan would be doomed if it gets blacklisted.
In several videos, he has also tried to instigate people in the name of India saying if they will not tweet, their enemy will win.
"People living outside Pakistan should try to tweet as much as possible to we try to make these worldwide trend, #FATFWhitelistPakistan and #FATFBLACKLISTINDIA," he tweeted.
Pakistan is in the grey list since June 2018 and the government was given a final warning in February to complete the remaining action points by June 2020.
The FATF extended the June deadline to September due to the spread of coronavirus that disrupted the FATF plenary meetings.
The country 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.
In recent weeks, Pakistan has been trying to paint a picture that it has started the reforms including the passing of bills in order to prevent blacklisting by the FATF.
In late July, Pakistan Financial Monitoring Unit Director-General Lubna Farooq told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that the country is yet to comply with 13 conditions out of the 27-point Action Plan of the FATF including curbing terror financing, enforcement of the laws against the proscribed organisations and improving the legal systems.
