Pakistan drops Southport attack disinformation case

Rioters surrounded and set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Rotherham on 4 August

Authorities in Pakistan have dropped a case against a man who was arrested last week in relation to disinformation thought to have fuelled the recent UK riots.

Police said they could not find evidence that Farhan Asif was the originator of the news and so were not continuing with the case.

Leaving a Lahore court on Monday, Mr Asif declined to answer the BBC’s questions.

Unrest broke out in England and Northern Ireland earlier this month, after disinformation spread about the name and identity of the alleged perpetrator of a stabbing attack in Southport in which three young girls died.

A BBC investigation had linked Mr Asif to a website called Channel3Now, which posted an article that included a false name for the alleged attacker, and wrongly suggested he was an asylum seeker who arrived in the UK by boat last year.

The article was shared widely on social media and quickly went viral.

In Monday's court session, police said that Mr Asif was a freelancer at a private channel and that they found he had shared news by a different social media account in the UK.

After UK police had refuted the false information he had shared, Mr Asif deleted the post and issued an apology on Channel3now for sharing the news, police said.

The judge asked Mr Asif a rhetorical question about whether he now realised he should be careful about the information he shares online.

BBC Verify previously tracked down several people linked to Channel3Now and questioned someone who claimed to be “management” at the site.

That person told the BBC that the publication of the false name “shouldn’t have happened, but it was an error, not intentional”.

False information about the attacker spread online after three young girls were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class on 29 July.

Violent disorder then broke out in Southport before spreading to towns and cities across England and Northern Ireland, fuelled by misinformation, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment.

In the past three weeks, more than 500 people have been charged in relation to the disorder and at least 170 sentenced, many being sent to jail.

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