LONDON
\nLondon Mayor Sadiq Khan has revealed that he is \u201cnot safe\u201d as a Muslim politician in the UK after far-right riots engulfed the country this week.
\nHe said rhetoric from politicians has led to a \u201cheartbreaking\u201d return of bigotry in Britain, and called on the government to introducer harsher legislation to tackle misinformation and hate speech on social media.
\n\u201cClearly I\u2019m not safe, which is why I\u2019ve got police protection,\u201d Khan said at an anti-racism event hosted by Chelsea Football Club in London.
\nUnrest broke out across the UK following a knife attack last week that killed three children. Far-right agitators are thought to have spread false information online wrongly accusing the attacker of being a Muslim asylum-seeker.
\nThis led to mosques, Muslim neighborhoods and businesses, and centers housing asylum-seekers being targeted by mobs.
\nWhen asked whether the use of language by MPs from the Reform and Conservative parties had played a part in stoking the violence, Khan said: \u201cI think for the last few years we\u2019ve seen politicians, including from the last government, use language that\u2019s not guarded.\u201d
\nEarlier this year, Reform Chief Whip Lee Anderson accused Khan of being beholden to \u201cIslamists.\u201d
\nFormer Home Secretary Suella Braverman wrote in the Daily Telegraph: \u201cThe truth is that the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now.\u201d
\nThis week, Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick said protesters shouting \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d (God is great) on the streets of the UK should be arrested.
\nKhan called on Jenrick to withdraw his remarks, and previously said Braverman\u2019s article was \u201ca poisonous attempt to drive a wedge between our communities.\u201d
\nAt the Chelsea event, Khan said: \u201cTalking about an invasion, talking about Islam running the country, talking about Islam running London \u2014 this sort of language leads to people believing some of this stuff.
\n\u201cI think good politicians, positive politicians address people\u2019s fears, poor ones play on people\u2019s fears, and these ones play on people\u2019s fears with tropes and conspiracy theories, and they should reflect on the consequences of that.\u201d
\nIn an interview with The Guardian, he said what the UK had witnessed over the past few days is reminiscent of his childhood in London, when he and others had to contend with racist groups such as the National Front and the British National Party.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s heartbreaking to me is my children\u2019s generation had never experienced what I had, and they, for the first time, were scared,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought I\u2019d be the last generation to be scared, simply for who I am. And it breaks my heart.
\n\u201cI\u2019m somebody who grew up in the 1970s and 80s and experienced the National Front and the BNP, and I thought that\u2019s behind us.
\n\u201cLike a lot of people of my generation, I felt triggered by the events of the last couple of weeks in particular.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to explain the ripples when you\u2019ve been targeted because of your religion or colour of your skin and you can\u2019t change either of those things.\u201d
\nKhan said the way misinformation has been spread online, including how far-right groups have used social media to organize violence, shows that current legislation requiring companies to take \u201crobust action\u201d against illegal activity is out of date.
\n\u201cThe way the algorithms work, the way that misinformation can spread very quickly and disinformation \u2026 that\u2019s a cause to be concerned, we\u2019ve seen a direct consequence of this,\u201d he added.
\n\u201cI think what the government should do very quickly is check whether the Online Safety Act is fit for purpose; I think it\u2019s not fit for purpose.\u201d
\nHome Secretary Yvette Cooper has called on social media companies to do more to tackle extremism, while Justice Secretary Heidi Alexander branded X owner Elon Musk as \u201cdeeply irresponsible\u201d after the billionaire posted that \u201ccivil war is inevitable\u201d in the UK in the wake of the riots.
\nCabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the government will keep the legislative framework for the Online Safety Act \u201cunder review.\u201d
\nHe added: \u201cIf we need to act in relation to online safety laws \u2014 we will. Sadiq Khan\u2019s challenge is that we quickly review it, consider it, and that\u2019s exactly what we will do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON London Mayor Sadiq Khan has revealed that he is \u201cnot safe\u201d as a Muslim politician in the UK after far-right riots engulfed the country this week. He said rhetoric from politicians has led to a \u201cheartbreaking\u201d return of bigotry in Britain, and called on the government to introducer harsher legislation to tackle misinformation and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":68643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68687,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68661\/revisions\/68687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}