A Pakistani judge on Monday (August 26, 2024) acquitted a man who was charged with spreading misinformation that helped spark widespread rioting in the U.K. earlier this month, officials said.

The decision came less than a week after Farhan Asif, a 32-year-old web developer, was arrested in a raid on his home in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province, and charged with cyberterrorism.

After a hearing on Monday (August 26, 2024), the judge ordered the release of Mr. Asif, who walked free. He told the judge that he deleted his post on social media only six hours after realising that it was not correct.

Federal investigators told the judge that they had no evidence to prove that he was guilty of intentionally spreading misinformation, Rana Rizwan, a defense lawyer, told reporters.

The Federal Investigation Agency had accused Mr. Asif of spreading misinformation on YouTube and Facebook about the British teenage suspect in a stabbing attack that killed three girls and injured 10 other people on July 29 at a dance class in northwest England.

Lahore:

A Pakistani man appeared in court Wednesday to face charges of cyber terrorism after allegedly spreading disinformation on his clickbait website thought to have fuelled anti-immigration riots in Britain. 

Farhan Asif was accused of publishing an article on his Channel3Now website falsely claiming that a Muslim asylum seeker was suspected in a deadly knife attack on children in the United Kingdom. 

UK authorities have blamed online misinformation for sparking days of riots which targeted mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers as well as police officers and other properties.

“He is a 31-year-old software engineer with no journalism credentials, apart from running the Channel3Now website, which served as a source of income for him,” a senior official at Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“Initial investigations indicate that his sole intent was to make money through clickbait content.”

Asif appeared at a Lahore district court on Wednesday charged with cyber terrorism and was remanded to custody for one day, the official added.

The article with the false information was published on Channel3Now just hours after the attack and was widely cited in viral social media posts.

More than a dozen English towns and cities saw unrest and riots after the July 29 knife attack that killed three girls during a dance class in Southport.

The man charged with murder and attempted murder over the stabbing spree, Axel Rudakubana, was born in Britain to parents who hail from Rwanda, an overwhelmingly Christian country.

Officials have blamed far-right elements for helping to stir up the disorder.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Police cordon off an area in Leicester Square, as a man was arrested with the accusation of stabbing an 11-year-old girl and 34-year-old woman, in London, Monday Aug. 12, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

London’s Metropolitan Police say a man has been arrested after an 11-year-old girl and a 34-year-old woman were stabbed in central London.

Monday’s (August 12, 2024) attack occurred in Leicester Square, which is heavily visited by tourists at this time of year.

Police said the two victims were taken to a hospital. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

The stabbing occurred as Britain is on edge after violence for the past week as crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans clashed with police. The disturbances have been fuelled by right-wing activists using social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event.

London:

Thousands of anti-racism demonstrators rallied across the UK on Saturday to protest recent rioting blamed on the far-right in the wake of the Southport knife attack that killed three children.

Crowds massed in London, Glasgow in Scotland, Belfast in Northern Ireland, Manchester and numerous other English towns and cities, as fears of violent confrontations with anti-immigration agitators failed to materialise.

It followed similar developments on Wednesday night when anticipated far-right rallies up and down the country failed to materialise. Instead, people turned out for gatherings organised by the Stand Up To Racism advocacy group.

Up until that point, more than a dozen English towns and cities — and Belfast too — had been hit by anti-migrant unrest, following the deadly July 29 stabbings which were falsely linked on social media to a Muslim immigrant.

Rioters targeted mosques and hotels linked to immigration, as well as police, vehicles and other sites.

Recent nights have been largely peaceful in English towns and cities, prompting hope among the authorities that the nearly 800 arrests and numerous people already jailed had deterred further violence.

Despite the respite, UK media reported Saturday that Prime Minister Keir Starmer had cancelled plans to go on holiday next week to remain focused on the crisis.

 ‘No to racism’ 

In Northern Ireland, which has seen sustained disorder since last weekend, police said they were investigating a suspected racially motivated hate crime overnight.

A petrol bomb was thrown at a mosque in Newtownards, east of Belfast, early Saturday, with racist graffiti sprayed on the building, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The petrol bomb thrown at the property had failed to ignite, it added.

“This is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime, and I want to send a strong message to those who carried this out, that this type of activity will not be tolerated,” PSNI Chief Inspector Keith Hutchinson said.

Overnight, there were also reports of damage to property and vehicles in Belfast, as nightly unrest there rumbled on.

While the disturbances in Northern Ireland were sparked by events in England, they have also been fuelled by pro-UK loyalist paramilitaries with their own agenda, according to the PSNI.

Around 5,000 anti-racism demonstrators rallied in Belfast on Saturday “largely without incident”, police said.

Fiona Doran, of the United Against Racism group which co-organised the gathering, said it showed “that Belfast is a welcoming city… that says no to racism, to fascism, to islamophobia, to antisemitism, or misogyny”.

 ‘Delivering justice’ 

In London, thousands massed outside the office of Brexit architect Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party before marching through the city centre, accompanied by a large police presence.

They blame Farage and other far-right figures for helping to fuel the riots through anti-immigrant rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

“It’s really important for people of colour in this country, for immigrants in this country, to see us out here as white British people saying ‘no, we don’t stand for this’,” attendee Phoebe Sewell, 32, from London, told AFP.

Fellow Londoner Jeremy Snelling, 64, said he had turned out because “I don’t like the right-wing claiming the streets in my name”.

He accused Reform party founder Farage of having “contributed” to the volatile environment.

“I think he is damaging and I think he’s dangerous,” Snelling added.

Meanwhile, suspected rioters continued to appear in court on Saturday.

Stephen Parkinson, the head of the prosecution service, said hundreds of alleged participants in the violence would soon face justice as a “new phase” of “more serious” cases worked through the system.

Those convicted could face jail terms of up to 10 years under the most serious offence of rioting, he warned.

“It’s not about exacting revenge, it’s about delivering justice,” Parkinson said, in comments reported by the Sunday Times.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

King Charles III made his first comments on Friday about riots that have shaken British cities, praising the work of police in countering the violence.

While the monarch and Queen Camilla conveyed their condolences to the families of three girls killed in a mass stabbing on July 29, Buckingham Palace had not commented on the near-daily riots which followed.

The king praised British police and emergency services “for all they are doing to restore peace in those areas that have been affected by violent disorder”, according to a Buckingham Palace spokesperson.

He hoped the “shared values of mutual respect and understanding will continue to strengthen and unite the nation”, the spokesperson added.

Many observers had been watching to see if the king, who is on his annual summer holiday in Scotland, would end his noticeable silence on the disturbances.

Hundreds of people have been arrested in the near-nightly unrest that hit cities across England and in Northern Ireland and which authorities have blamed on far-right agitators.

Officials say the rioters took advantage of the killings of the girls in the northwestern English coastal town of Southport to launch racist and Islamophobic protests. The suspect accused of the killings was born in Britain.

Traditionally, the monarch does not comment on anything that could cause political controversy.

But in calls with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and police chiefs, the king said he had been “greatly encouraged” by the reaction “that countered the aggression and criminality from a few with the compassion and resilience of the many”.

While extra police have been put on standby, there have been many counter-demonstrations in cities where far-right protests had been planned.

 ‘Perilous moment’ 

His call for unity followed a silence that had concerned some royal watchers.

“I am surprised that the king as head of state hasn’t come out more forcefully, given that it’s a perilous moment for the United Kingdom,” historian and royal commentator Ed Owens said before the statement’s release.

According to constitutional law expert Craig Prescott, however, “the monarchy does not comment on current political events”. The late Queen Elizabeth II remained similarly quiet during the last wave of riots which shook England in 2011.

“Once the riots have subsided, you might expect members of the royal family to visit places affected and perhaps to see them more in multicultural settings,” Prescott said in a post on the X social media platform.

“If the king speaks out about this, then what about the next big issue and the one after that.”

Owens argued that Charles, who has gradually resumed public duties after a cancer diagnosis earlier this year, may not have publicly reacted for two main reasons.

He may have been “advised by his government that it would be unwise at this stage” to intervene directly.

And the monarch might himself have deemed the issue too “combustible”. The question of “illegal migration” is politically divisive and sensitive in Britain, said Owens.

But as heir to the throne, Charles made known his opposition to the previous government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

And the king has been more vocal about topics such as climate change over the years. Since becoming the monarch he is seen as having presented himself as more accessible than his predecessors, including by opening up about his health.

But for Graham Smith, head of Republic, a pressure group which campaigns for an elected UK head of state to replace the monarch, the lack of a response to the riots showed that the monarchy is an institution “for someone who isn’t able to speak really”.

According to media reports, quoting palace sources, the king has asked for a daily update on the crisis.

But Smith said: “There’s no value in a billionaire sitting in his holiday home being updated about what’s happening. I mean, it’s easy to be updated — switch the TV on.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

London:

A wave of riots, sparked by a deadly attack at a children’s dance event and further fueled by a torrent of misinformation, has gripped parts of the United Kingdom. What began as a community’s grief over the tragic loss of three young girls has spiralled into nationwide chaos, with far-right groups using the moment to incite anti-immigration and anti-Muslim violence.

What triggered the protests

On July 29, three young girls, aged six to nine, were killed during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event in Southport, northern England. Eight other children and two adults also suffered stab wounds and were transferred to the hospital. The attacker, 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, was arrested and charged with three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and one of possession of a blade.

Axel Rudakubana was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. However, false information that he was an Islamist migrant quickly spread on social media. This misinformation incited violent anti-Muslim protests in Southport the following day, including an attempted attack on the local mosque.

Spread of the riots

On Wednesday evening, a sea of angry demonstrators descended upon Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Downing Street office, voicing their outrage over immigration and demanding action from the government. The crowd’s chants of “Save our kids” and “We want our country back” filled the air as protesters clashed with police, hurling flares and smoke canisters towards the prime minister’s residence.

The Metropolitan police reported 111 arrests and five injured officers, following a night of violent disorder. This comes after Tuesday’s initial protests in Southport, where over 50 police officers were hurt and police vans were set ablaze.

Since then, riots have erupted in over 20 locations, including Sunderland, Manchester, Plymouth and Belfast, across Britain. These protests have involved hundreds of participants targeting migrants or Muslims, vandalising shops, and clashing with police.

Who is behind the riots?

Keir Starmer blames the recent violence on “far-right thuggery”. Prominent anti-Muslim and anti-immigration activists, like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, are accused of spreading false information to inflame tensions. Social media platforms have been criticised for not preventing the spread of disinformation, which has played a significant role in amplifying these false narratives.

According to police, the majority of those involved in the clashes were far-right agitators from outside the local areas. However, some individuals with local grievances or young people seeking excitement also joined the fray, police said. Meanwhile, counter-protesters and anti-fascist groups have gathered to oppose them.

The motivation behind the riots

Many rioters, describing themselves as “patriots”, claimed that high immigration levels were undermining British society. They argued that immigration fueled violence and crime and that politicians favoured migrants. However, rights groups and anti-racist organisations rejected these claims as baseless, suggesting the true motive was extremism masked as patriotism.

Government’s response

The Starmer-led government has taken swift action in response to the recent riots, making nearly 600 additional prison places available and deploying specialist officers to prevent the situation from spiralling. A 58-year-old British man has also been jailed for three years for violent disorder.

The government is also targeting those using social media to spread trouble, with one man charged for using threatening language to stir up racial hatred on Facebook. Science Minister Peter Kyle has met with representatives from major tech companies, like TikTok, Meta, Google and X, to prevent incitement and the spread of false information online.

London:

Thousands of anti-racism protesters have taken to the streets in many cities and towns of the UK to counter far-right demonstrations after days of unrest following Southport stabbing.

By 11 pm on Wednesday, most of the planned far-right demonstrations, numbering more than 100, didn’t materialize after the British government deployed heavy police force to maintain order and large numbers of anti-racist protesters swarmed streets in cities and towns like London, Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Liverpool, Hastings and Walthamstow, Xinhua news agency reported.

Anti-racism protesters held placards with words such as “Smash fascism & racism”, “Refugees welcome. Stop the far-right” and “Love, not hate”. In Brighton, only a small number of far-right protesters turned up and were outnumbered by huge anti-racism crowds.

This came as a relief for the UK after days of far-right protests, targeting Muslims and the immigrant population in general, gripped the country, resulting in police officers being injured, stores being looted, and hotels housing asylum-seekers being stormed.

The unrest was sparked by online disinformation that wrongly claimed the suspect who killed three children in Southport, northwest England, at the end of July was a Muslim immigrant. It was a 17-year-old boy named Axel Rudakubana born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents that was later charged with murder.

More than 100 rioters have been charged following the disorder and their cases have been swiftly processed in the court system. On Wednesday, three men were jailed, with one being given three years of prison time.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Riots have spread across several U.K. towns and cities following the killing of three children, Alice Aguiar (9), Bebe King (6) and Elsie Stancombe (7) and the injury of several others during a knife attack in Southport on July 29.  

Disinformation and, presumably, misinformation that an undocumented migrant and Muslim was behind the attacks spread quickly on social media. The main suspect in the case is neither Muslim nor an asylum seeker but  17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, born in the U.K. to Rwandan parents who arrived in the country in 2002.

Also Read : U.K. grapples with its worst riots in 13 years spurred by far-right agitators

Following the Southport murders, rioters attacked a mosque in the town while people were inside it. Riots spread to other places in England, including Liverpool, London, Middlesbrough, as well as in Northern Ireland. Tommy Robinson, former leader of the far right English Defence League was among those stoking tensions online.

 On Sunday, August 4, 2024, a mob of 700 far right rioters had descended upon the Holiday Inn in Rotheram which housed asylum seekers, smashing its windows, entering the premises, and lighting fires outside. They had also attempted to set the building on fire as per the police. On Tuesday, Jordan Palour became the first person to be convicted on grounds of racial hatred, after he posted messages on Facbook and attacked a hotel with asylum seekers. Britain has not witnessed such riots since 2011, when a Black man was shot by police in London.

In response to the threat of far right riots, hundreds took to the street in Birmingham on the evening of August 5, including some waving Palestinian flags, following reports that far right protestors had planned a march there. A group of Muslim youth attacked several vehicles and a pub, The Clumsy Swan, in Birmingham. On Tuesday, several members of the local Muslim community posted a video with the pub staff , in which they apologized for the group’s violence.

Starmer emphasises  ‘law and order’, protection of minorites

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s response thus far has emphasised  that his government is strong on law-and-order matters. The Prime Minister, a former public prosecutor, has honed a centrist image , and his Labour party campaign had promised that it would “return law and order to our streets”.   

After an emergency ‘Cobra’ high level emergency meeting on Monday, Mr. Starmer said a “standing army “ of public duty officers would be established. It is unclear where these units will be located and how they will be deployed but 6,000 police officers were mobilized for more than 30 gatherings planned for Wednesday. There are plans for courts to kept open extra hours and 567 prison places have been made available. As of this wring, between 400 and 500 individuals have been arrested.

“I guarantee you will regret taking part in this disorder,” Mr. Starmer said on Monday, adding that attacks on Muslim communities would not be tolerated. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, said “far right extremism, racism and Islamophobia” would not be tolerated as she announced special protection for mosques across the U.K.

Apart from maintaining law and order and fending off racism, The Labour Party may need to win some trust back from Muslim communities, whose support for the party weakened, as indicated in the July 4 general election. Part of this was owing to Mr Starmer and the party’s position on Israel and Gaza which was seen as too favourable towards Israel.

“I’m sure that a tiny part of their thinking is that this is an opportunity to win some [ support from Muslims] back (though that seems unlikely with the war in Gaza still raging),” political scientist Anand Menon who heads the UK in a Changing Europe think tank told The Hindu on Monday, August 5.

 “I think the dominant incentive, because Labour has traditionally been vulnerable on law and order, is to restore order to reassure a far larger section of voters,” Mr. Menon added.

Accusations of two tier policing from the Right

With regard to policing, the phrase and notion of “two tier policing” appears to have seeped further into the public consciousness over the last few days. This is the suggestion that the same standards of policing are not applied equally to everyone. However, the magnitude and extent of the violence seen in the far-right activities in recent days has been significantly greater and different from anything seen thus far in the periodic protests in London in solidarity with Palestine earlier this year, i.e., in the context in which the term has recently been used.

This has also been the current U.K. government’s stance. Justice Secretary Heidi Alexander called the accusations of differential policing a “completely baseless assertion” when speaking to the BBC on Tuesday, August 6. She and Mr. Starmer are among those who have said these are not protests but instances of rioting and criminal violence.  

Elon Musk and the role of disinformation

The role of disinformation and misinformation, and specifically social media site X, have been central to the unfolding of events over the last few days.  X owner Elon Musk has also directly waded into the conflict – even as he was being challenged on the other side of the Atlantic on X’s Grok AI chatbot providing false information on the presidential election process.

 “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” Mr. Musk said on X, in response to a tweet by Mr. Starmer that said the UK government would not tolerate attacks on mosques or Muslim communities.

On August 4, Mr. Musk responded to a video of fireworks being set off by rioters, saying “Civil war is inevitable.” He tweeted ‘#TwoTierKier’ on August 6 in the context of the Birmingham pub attack.

In the coming days the U.K. government will seek to step up its response to online disinformation – which is not only a growing problem but also one that evolves constantly. In addition to Mr. Starmer’s assurance that those responsible online would be held to account, the U.K. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle met with X, Meta, Google and TikTok “to make clear their responsibility to continue to work with us to stop the spread of hateful misinformation and incitement”, Mr. Kyle said via a statement on Monday.

U.K. Justice Minister Alexander said that the Online Safety Act needed constant review as technology reviewed.

How opposition politicians have reacted

While they have condemned the violence, prominent opposition politicians have differed in terms of the nuances of their reaction. Former U.K. Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak and former Home Secretary Priti Patel, both of whom were immigration hardliners have called out the rioters. However, during his term as Prime Minister, Mr. Sunak frequently used the phrase ‘Stop the boats’ to describe his migration strategy. Now, this has become a phrase chanted by rioters.  

Suella Braverman, who termed migrant arrivals an ‘invasion’ and made fighting illegal migration a focus of her tenure as Home Secretary during in the Sunak government has been low key in terms of commentary on the riots.  Ms Braverman had previously used the term ‘two-tier policing’ and resigned in November 2023 after accusing the police of bias.

“I don’t care what your political beliefs are. If you are responsible for these disgusting acts, you should be locked up,” said Tom Tugendhat, who is competing with Ms Patel and others to lead the Conservative Party.

Nigel Farage, whose anti-immigrant Reform UK party, won 14% of the vote share (and five seats in the House of Commons), condemned the violence but also said “uncontrolled” immigration, legal and illegal, was fracturing communities and alleged ‘two-tier’ policing.

Hate crimes and migration

Hate crimes in the U.K. have steadily increased in every year, bar one (2022/23), since government data became available in 2012/13.  Both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia had been on the rise in London following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s prolonged and ongoing retaliation on Gaza.  Sharp divisions on migration, as well as the spillover of international events into the UK, could possibly be raising the temperature between communities.

Migration has also been a key issue in the recent U.K. elections. Some 52% of Britons (Ipsos survey, February 2024) say immigration is too high and this is reflected in the positions of both  Labour and the Tories. It is therefore all but certain that a conversation and government decisions in this area are imminent, although they may be pushed down the line until tempers cool.

U.K. travel Impact

The U.K. as a destination for tourism, travel and education has been impacted, at least in the short term. India joined several other countries – e.g., Canada, Nigeria, the UAE, Australia, Malaysia – warning its citizens of the risks of traveling in the U.K. right now.

An unruly crowd clash with police, Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in Southport, northwest England, near where three girls were stabbed to death in a dance class the day before. The violence erupted shortly after a peaceful vigil was attended by hundreds in the center of Southport to mourn the 13 victims of the stabbings, including seven still in critical condition.
| Photo Credit: AP

The British government has called on Elon Musk to act responsibly after the tech billionaire used his social media platform X to unleash a barrage of posts that officials say risk inflaming the violent unrest gripping the country.

Justice Minister Heidi Alexander made the comments Tuesday morning (August 6) after Mr. Musk posted a comment saying that “Civil war is inevitable” in the U.K. Mr. Musk later doubled down, highlighting complaints that the British criminal justice system treats Muslims more leniently than far-right activists and comparing Britain’s crackdown on social media users to the Soviet Union.

“Use of language such as a ‘civil war’ is in no way acceptable,’’ Ms. Alexander told Times Radio. “We are seeing police officers being seriously injured, buildings set alight, and so I really do think that everyone who has a platform should be exercising their power responsibly.’’

Britain has been shaken by violence for more than a week, as police clashed with crowds spouting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic slogans in cities and towns from Northern Ireland to the south coast of England. The unrest began after right-wing activists used social media to spread misinformation about a knife attack that killed three girls during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event on July 29.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has described the riots as “far-right thuggery,” on Monday (August 5) said the government would deploy a “standing army” of specialist police officers to quell the unrest.

But the government is also calling on social media companies, such as Mr. Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter, to do more to combat the spread of misleading and inflammatory information online.

Ms. Alexander said Tuesday that the government would look at strengthening the existing Online Safety Act, which was approved last year and won’t be fully implemented until 2025.

“We’ve been working with the social media companies, and some of the action that they’ve taken already with the automatic removal of some false information is to be welcomed,” Ms. Alexander told the BBC. “But there is undoubtedly more that the social media companies could and should be doing.”

That type of rhetoric may be part of what sparked Mr. Musk’s attack on the government. Mr. Musk has taken a more combative approach to his critics than was the norm in Silicon Valley technology firms, said Alex Krasodomski, who studies the intersection between technology and politics at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

“He has sparred with U.K. and EU policymakers in the past when they have questioned his approaches to content moderation on the platform,” Mr. Krasodomski said.

X didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. It rarely responds to media requests.

Mr. Musk just kept wading into the debate about the violence in Britain.

After Starmer posted a comment on X saying that the government “will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities,” Mr. Musk responded with the question, “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on all communities?”

Mr. Musk attached a similar comment to a video that said it showed a “Muslim patrol” attacking a pub in Birmingham, highlighting the original post for his 193 million followers.

Such comments are vintage Mr. Musk, who has a history of making provocative statements, said Stephanie Alice Baker, a sociologist at City University of London who has studied online discourse. Mr. frequently comments on geopolitical issues and his fans come to his defense when he is criticized, Ms. Baker said.

Earlier this year, he clashed with a Brazilian supreme court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and purported misinformation on X. He also accused Venezuela’s socialist President, Nicolás Maduro, of “major election fraud” after last week’s disputed election.

Those comments are closely watched by a group of people attracted by his success in business, Ms. Baker said.

“Mr. Musk’s following represents the cult of the entrepreneur …” she said. “By questioning convention, they are depicted as gifted visionaries, who can predict the future and bring it into being. For his fans and followers, Mr. Musk’s impulsive comments are perceived as part of his genius.”