ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office (FO) on Wednesday strongly objected to British Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s “discriminatory and xenophobic” remarks on Pakistani men, saying that they painted a “highly misleading picture”.
A day earlier, during a Sky News interview about plans to tackle child sexual abuse, Braverman spoke about “the predominance of British-Pakistani males who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values”.
“[British-Pakistani men] see women in a demeaned, illegitimate way, and pursue an outdated and frankly heinous approach to the way we behave,” Braverman remarked after she was informed that a Home Office report in 2020 found that most child sexual abuse gangs are comprised of white men under the age of 30, and the available evidence did not indicate that members of grooming gangs were disproportionately more likely to be Asian or black.
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The minister instead gave reference to reports from Rotherham, a town in South Yorkshire, which was rocked by a child sexual exploitation scandal involving five British-Pakistani men who were convicted of grooming, raping and exploiting young girls.
Braverman also cited a 2015 report by Dame Louise Casey CB, which ironically underlined how the British-Pakistani people have been “harmed by association” in the scandal.
Political commentators and children’s charities criticised Braverman as “inflammatory” and akin to initiating “race wars”.
Responding to the British minister’s remarks in a press briefing today, the FO spokesperson said that Braverman’s comments painted a “highly misleading picture signalling the intent to target and treat British Pakistanis differently”.
She stated that the UK home secretary erroneously labeled criminal behaviour of a few individuals as a representation of the entire community.
The spokesperson added “Braverman fails to take note of the systemic racism and ghettoisation of communities and omits to recognize the tremendous cultural, economic and political contributions that British Pakistanis continue to make in British society.”
FO expresses concerns over rise of communal violence in India
Baloch also expressed Islamabad’s “deep concerns” over the “alarming rise” in violence against Muslims in India following last week’s communal riots in different states of the neighbouring country last week during the Hindu festival of Ram Navmi.
Over a dozen people were injured in Hindu-Muslim clashes were reported in at least nine Indian states. Local media said vehicles, houses as well as shops were set ablaze during the riots.
