Islamabad (TDI): The Foreign Office (FO) has strongly condemned “increasingly racist and Islamophobic” discourse targeting the Pakistani diaspora in the United Kingdom (UK).
In a weekly press briefing on Monday, newly-appointed FO spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said British Pakistanis have always contributed significantly towards the development and growth.
Today, British Pakistanis are the backbone of the UK’s health, retail and services sectors,” he said.
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The FO spokesperson highlighted that many British Pakistanis hold high public office, and thousands serve their communities as Members of Parliament, mayors, councillors, and members of local police and municipal services.
“British Pakistanis have excelled in sports and arts. Their cuisine and music enrich British culture,” he noted.
He renounced the growing anti-Pakistani commentary in the UK, saying it was wrong to demonise such a large and diverse community on the basis of the actions of a few individuals.
“We express serious concern over the growing racist and Islamophobic rhetoric in UK politics and media, which seeks to unfairly associate the actions of a few individuals with the entire British Pakistani community of 1.7 million,” he stated in response to a question.
The statement comes after the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Elon Musk joined the contentious debate about “Asian grooming gangs”, targeting the Pakistani community in Britain.
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The tech billionaire claimed that the incumbent UK government was protecting the “grooming gangs,” and called UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer a “rape genocide apologist”.
Musk went on to endorse India’s religious extremist party Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi’s tweet that urged that these gangs be called “Pakistani grooming games”, and not “ASIAN grooming gangs.”
