Boxer Amir Khan and his wife Faryaal Makhdoom have expressed their outrage at a video of a young Asian man being kicked and stamped in the head by a Greater Manchester Police officer.
The incident which took place at Manchester Airport on Tuesday (23 July) sparked protests in the local community as hundreds gathered outside a Rochdale police station overnight, chanting “shame on you”. The officer in the video has since been suspended from all duties.
Khan, who also hails from the north of England and is of British-Pakistani origin, condemned the actions of police and expressed his disgust at the footage.
“So I saw a video today, and it is quite disgusting,” he began in a post to his 2 million followers on X/Twitter.
“You’ve got three or four policemen, they grab some young kids, probably coming off a flight, and gave them a good beating.”
GMP said its officers had been called to Terminal 2 of the airport following reports of a fight, with officers and members of the public suffering injuries as a result.
Model and entrepreneur Faryaal expressed her fury at the events as she wrote, “Police officers? Or a bunch of cowards? All this has become worse since Israel. It’s like it’s almost normal to bully and openly be racist towards Muslims.”
In a comment on another video, the mother-of-two wrote: “This needs to stop!” and “How dare they behave like this. Disgraceful, disgusting!”
Khan continued, “It’s the first time I’ve seen a video like that where policemen are not even asking questions but just beating and stamping on the heads of these two young Asian boys, and the mother’s watching right there.”
Many were left distressed by footage of an older woman appearing to crouch down to protect the head of one of the young men lying in a prone position.
“I mean it is disgusting to see a video like that, it scares you from coming to the UK,” said Khan who splits his time between Bolton and Dubai.
“Also not only that, imagine what the mother was going through.”
He called for the police to take strong action and for officers involved in the incident to be fired.
“They need to be sacked, people like that need to be told and put in their place, even though they’re police. What they did there was wrong. It’s sad to see that, I hope the boys are alright. I don’t know why they were arrested but look, things like that shouldn’t happen in the UK and it’s so disgusting.”
GMP released a statement on Wednesday (24 July) to say it understood the public’s “immense feeling of concern”.
Many have expressed outrage at the viral video, condemning the force for “police brutality,” including Rochdale MP Paul Waugh who called the footage “truly shocking and disturbing”. Broadcaster Jeremy Kyle called the incident “massively brutal”.
The Independent
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