Illegal immigrants and criminals have more human rights than British military veterans, claimed a leading campaigner for the right of old soldiers to wear a medal banned by civil service red tape.
Andy Nicoll, one of the 5000 Scots and 30,000 other UK servicemen who fought a bitter jungle war against Chinese communist guerrillas in the 1950s and 1960s, yesterday accused a faceless Whitehall committee of "bureaucratic tyranny" in forbidding the wearing of the Pingat Jasa Malaysia (PJM).
His comments follow a refusal by the Parliamentary Ombudsman to investigate or overturn the decision of the UK's unelected Honours and Decorations Committee (HDC) that foreign medals cannot be worn by veterans either where a British campaign award is available for the same action or for campaigns more than five years in the past.
The ombudsman's office said in a letter that no investigation of that ruling was possible because the issue fell within "disciplinary and personnel" matters in relation to armed service to the crown and was outwith its remit.
The PJM medal was offered by a grateful Malaysian government in 2005 to all UK and Commonwealth servicemen who took part in operations to preserve the country's freedom between 1957 and 1966.
Australian, New Zealand and Fijian veterans have been granted the right to include the award among their other military decorations, but their British comrades were told they could accept, but not wear the PJM.
Mr Nicoll, from Annan, said: "It's official. British veterans have been stripped of their British citizenship.
"The ombudsman reported that those who served in the forces more than 50 years ago are still classed as retired crown servants' and that they are subject to non-statutory rules and regulations and the orders of unelected civil servants.
"Their British citizenship which, together with the Human Rights Act, should give them full civil liberties, has been diminished by an alleged retired crown servant' status. This permits them to be ordered not to wear a medal as it would supposedly offend the Queen.
"Strangers who come to our shores as illegal immigrants and those who commit crimes against society and are in jail, are all given unlimited access to their democratic rights, but this apparently does not extend to veterans who have served Queen and country."
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