- A Pakistani journalist was arrested in Lahore for allegedly spreading fake news that fuelled anti-immigration and anti-Muslim riots in the UK.
- The journalist is accused of contributing to the unrest through the dissemination of false information.
Pakistani police have arrested a journalist for allegedly spreading misinformation that incited widespread rioting in the UK, according to a senior investigator. The suspect, identified as 32-year-old freelance web developer Farhan Asif, was arrested in Lahore, as confirmed by Deputy Inspector General of Investigations Imran Kishwar.
Asif is accused of disseminating false information via YouTube and Facebook following the Southport stabbing incident on July 29.
Channel3 Now, an account on the X platform has been accused of allegedly being one of the first to spread the false name of the attacker. The Facebook account associated with the channel is reportedly managed by individuals in Pakistan and the US. On July 31, the editor-in-chief issued an apology for the “misleading information” published.
The article claimed that the assailant was “a 17-year-old asylum-seeker” named Ali al-Shakati. The website alleged that he had arrived in the UK by boat last year and was on “an MI6 watch list,” an accusation that quickly went viral on social media.
Mr Asif denied being responsible for the riots stating: “I don’t know how such a small article or a minor Twitter account could cause widespread confusion.”
Channel3Now mentioned that [the suspect was] “a Muslim and an immigrant, but this has no connection to the chaos, which is being caused by people in his own country. If there was misinformation, it could have been addressed calmly. Why was there such an uproar?”
Asif denied writing the article, telling ITV News: “My understanding is that the article was deleted a day later, or it might have been done even earlier… there was a full article with an apology.
“It stated that it shouldn’t have happened, that it was a mistake by our team, and that they have been fired.”
“I think four people were fired,” he added. “The information search team, consisting of three to four people who worked on it together, were all fired.”
