16:57
Tieng Anh Vui
Former Army officers will visit Downing Street later to demand the option of UK resettlement for all Afghan interpreters who aided British forces.
The UK has offered some interpreters the right to live in the country.
But campaigners will deliver a petition of 27,500 signatures calling for all former interpreters to get that offer.
Otherwise, the UK is condemning the interpreters to "almost certain death", they said. The MoD said it had a range of measures for ex-staff.
The UK is offering resettlement to about half of the 1,200 Afghan staff who were working directly for the UK on 19 December 2012, when Prime Minister David Cameron announced a "drawdown" of British forces in Afghanistan.
Some of these staff were interpreters, but any who left before that date - except those who stopped working because of combat injuries - will not qualify.
The exact number who have worked as interpreters is unknown, but the MoD said about 550 of the 1,100 local staff currently working for the British government in Afghanistan are interpreters, and "many thousands" of Afghans had worked for the UK in some capacity since the 2001 invasion.
'Embarrassed'
Major James Driscoll, one of the former officers behind the resettlement campaign, said interpreters had taken "great risks to both to themselves and their families" to help British troops.
Analysis
The government says it's offering Afghans who've worked for the British "a very generous package".
But this group of former Army officers, who say they speak for many still serving, describe the policy as "morally reprehensible".
The reason - help is only being offered to those who were employed for more than a year and who were still working for the British on 19 December 2012.
That leaves hundreds of other interpreters who left their job before that date with no help at all.
Men who may have risked the bombs and bullets of Helmand serving alongside British soldiers. And men who may have had good reason to leave their job because of threats from the Taliban.
The MoD says there's a separate scheme offering assistance to anyone who worked for the British and who's faced intimidation.
But so far under that programme only one Afghan has been allowed to resettle in the UK.
"By denying entry into the UK the government is condemning them and their families to persecution and almost certain death," he said.
Maj Driscoll said the campaign represented many current and former soldiers who felt ex-interpreters should be protected from Taliban reprisals.
"Knowing that all Iraqi interpreters were offered UK resettlement, and given that other nations serving in Afghanistan have agreed to resettle all of their interpreters, these soldiers are embarrassed by the UK's lack of loyalty to those that fought for this country," he said.
A legal challenge for several of the interpreters was submitted to the High Court on 6 August, Maj Driscoll added.
Among those presenting the petition will be former Scots Guards Captain Alex Perkins, a great-grandson of Winston Churchill, who left the Army less than a year ago.
He said his great-grandfather, who had spent a large part of his career in the Army, "would have been shocked by the way our government is treating men who risked their lives to help British forces".
The campaigners are most concerned about interpreters who did "particularly dangerous" work in Helmand from 2006 onwards.
One of those was Baryalai Shams, a translator from 2008-09, who fled after his father and brother were killed by the Taliban.
He reached Germany on a false passport but was arrested and spent two years in immigration detention, before being granted asylum two weeks ago.
Maj Driscoll said it was "disappointing" Mr Shams had been forced to seek protection in another European country after serving Britain.
Protection measures
The UK's offer, which applies only to staff who had been working for at least 12 months up to 19 December 2012, is five years of training in Afghanistan with financial support, or a redundancy package worth 18 months' salary.
A "third option" - resettlement in the UK - will be offered only to those who worked in "particularly dangerous and challenging roles".
An MoD spokesman said this "very generous" redundancy scheme did not replace its pre-existing intimidation policy, which applies to anyone who worked for British forces at any time.
The spokesman said this policy "offers a separate range of protection and handling measures depending on the seriousness of the threat, including in extreme cases the option of relocation to the UK".
But BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Beale said only one Afghan had been allowed to move to the UK under this scheme.
In a statement issued in June, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he must consider "the potential impact on the UK and on Afghanistan of resettling large numbers of people".
The statement added: "Having invested so much already, the government wants to encourage local staff to stay in Afghanistan and to use their skills and knowledge to make it stronger."
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