FO condemns growing 'anti-Pakistani' rhetoric in UK

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ISLAMABAD:

The Foreign Office (FO) on Monday strongly condemned the "increasingly racist and Islamophobic" rhetoric targeting Pakistanis in the United Kingdom, expressing deep concerns over the demonisation of the entire community based on reprehensible actions of a few.

The FO's statement followed a social media controversy involving tech billionaire Elon Musk, who entered a heated debate about the term "Asian grooming gangs". Musk's remarks raised concerns about reinforcing harmful stereotypes about Pakistanis.

Using his platform X (formerly Twitter), Musk criticised the UK government over grooming gangs and accused a prominent Labour leader of being a "rape genocide apologist". He went further, demanding that both the Labour leader and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer be jailed.

The debate was intensified when Priyanka Chaturvedi, a leader of India's Shiv Sena (Uddhav Thackeray faction), tweeted: "Repeat after me, they aren't ASIAN Grooming Gangs but PAKISTANI grooming gangs." Musk replied with a curt "true".

Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan issued a detailed statement, expressing deep concern over the growing trend of conflating the criminal actions of a few individuals with the entire British Pakistani community.

"As such, we note with deep concern the increasingly racist and Islamophobic political and media commentary in the UK that is aimed at conflating the reprehensible actions of a few individuals with the entire 1.7 million British Pakistani diaspora," Khan said.

He highlighted the long-standing friendship between Pakistan and the UK, calling it a relationship marked by "warmth, cordiality, robust cooperation and trust."

"Nurtured over decades, this relationship remains an important priority of Pakistan's foreign policy," he added.