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| Zohaib Sadiq pictured in Pakistan earlier this year |
The husband of a Birmingham Labour councillor has been pictured holding an AK-47 assault rifle and a rocket launcher in Pakistan. The photos were apparently taken in February when the couple were on 'holiday'. Zohaib Sadiq, a Labour activist, posted the images on one of his Facebook pages and announced that he'd had a
"great day out with Pak army". The training camp he was visiting is reportedly near the Indian border. Interesting 'holiday'.
His councillor wife,
Safia Akhtar, had nothing to say when approached by the Times and neither did the Birmingham Labour group. When the newspaper asked her husband about the pictures he had no comment either and swiftly deleted the images.
Apparently this is the second time the 31-year-old has been pictured with weapons and was seen holding another assault rifle in Pakistan in 2013, albeit without any accompanying military personnel. The Times did not print this picture, so it is not clear if the gun was loaded, unlike the most recent example (see above) where there is clearly no magazine present.
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| Zohaib Sadiq (centre) with his wife and local activists |
Strangely this story has only appeared in the
Times and no other rag has touched it, not even the local Birmingham Mail. However, the Mail did
feature Safia Akhtar shortly before she became a councillor for the Small Heath ward last year. At that time she went by the name Safia Noor and stoked some controversy by claiming that there is "no ISIS" and "no proof" that terrorist atrocities were carried out by ISIS.
Their social media accounts show that this couple have strong links to Pakistan and a keen interest in what goes on there, while at the same time campaigning for the Labour party in Birmingham. Cllr Akhtar has been pictured with several Labour MPs including Liam Byrne and Shabana Mahmood. In 2015 she backed Yvette Cooper for the party leadership.
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| Zohaib Sadiq (left) |
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| Safia Akhtar (far right) and Zohaib Sadiq (centre) |
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| Safia Akhtar backed Yvette Cooper for the party leadership in 2015 |
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| Akhtar with fellow Labour activists |
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| Cllr Akhtar, pictured right, with Labour colleagues |
Of course we've seen pictures like this very recently. The controversial Peterborough by-election was marred by claims of postal vote rigging, anti-Semitism and a Labour campaign that appeared to be targeted solely at the Muslim community. It's not hard to join the dots and find that a party initially founded for the workers has long abandoned them in favour of an ethno-religious demographic and tribal politics. Leftist parties across western Europe have also signed up to this short-sighted alliance, eager for the short term political gain, ignorant of the long-term pain.
