Reuters

LONDON: An Afghan national was jailed for five years on Tuesday after he was found guilty of making a threat to kill Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform UK party which leads opinion polls in Britain. Fayaz Khan was last week convicted by a jury at London&#39;s Southwark Crown Court of a single count of making a threat to kill Farage in a TikTok video posted in October 2024. Prosecutors said Khan posted a video in response to one by Farage, in which Khan &ndash; who has an AK-47 assault rifle tattooed on his face &ndash; said &quot;pop, pop, pop&quot; while making gun gestures. Khan had denied making a threat to kill, telling police after his arrest the video was not a genuine threat. Farage gave evidence that he was &quot;genuinely worried&quot; about Khan&#39;s threat, describing the video as &quot;chilling&quot;. Farage sat in the public gallery as Judge Karen Steyn sentenced Khan to five years for making a threat to kill and a separate charge of attempting to enter Britain illegally, to which he had previously pleaded guilty. Khan shouted at both the judge and Farage after he was sentenced, telling Farage: &quot;You want to be prime minister ... you fucked my life.&quot;

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain’s Reform UK party, arrives to attend the sentencing of Fayaz Khan, who was earlier found guilty of making a threat in a TikTok video to kill Farage, at Southwark Crown Court in London, Britain, October 14, 2025. (Reuters)

Europe

Fayaz Khan was last week convicted by a jury at London's Southwark Crown Court of a single count of making a threat to kill Farage in a TikTok video posted in October 2024.

Afghan man jailed for threating anti-migrant leader Nigel Farage in TikTok video

WARABI: Turkish kebab restaurant worker Gur Sinan &quot;loves&quot; and feels welcome in Japan, but anxiety is growing in a country with historically low levels of immigration, just as the ruling party picks a new leader.&nbsp;&quot;I want to stay here for a long time,&quot; Sinan, 30, told AFP in Warabi, dotted with halal stores and shops with Chinese signs.&nbsp;&quot;I am studying Japanese. People are very nice here,&quot; he said.&nbsp;The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will elect a new head on Saturday, who will most likely become the next prime minister after Shigeru Ishiba decided to step down.&nbsp;The two frontrunners, arch-nationalist Sanae Takaichi and the youthful Shinjiro Koizumi, are talking tough on foreigners.&nbsp;Takaichi says Japan should &quot;reconsider policies that allow in people with completely different cultures and backgrounds&quot;.&nbsp;According to Koizumi, &quot;Illegal employment of foreigners and the worsening of public safety are leading to anxiety among local residents.&quot;&nbsp;Such alarmism from mainstream politicians is rare in a country that, compared to other rich nations, is safe and where people born abroad are just three percent of the population.&nbsp;But life has become harder, with inflation squeezing incomes, and voters have been deserting the LDP, depriving it of a majority in both houses of parliament.&nbsp;Fanning the concerns is the &quot;Japanese-first&quot; Sanseito party, which did well in recent elections and calls immigration a &quot;silent invasion&quot;.&nbsp;It blames immigrants and tourists &mdash; Japan is seeing record numbers &mdash; for a host of ills from rising property prices to bad driving.&nbsp;Many traditional voters of the LDP &mdash; which has governed almost non-stop for decades &mdash; are susceptible to such claims, said Sadafumi Kawato, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo.&quot;Coverage of foreigners with bad manners is often picked up by morning and daytime TV programmes, and it appeals to regular people,&quot; he told AFP.&nbsp;&#39;Scum&#39;Japan&#39;s population is ageing and shrinking, and a Nikkei study showed 97.9 percent of CEOs want more foreign workers allowed in.&nbsp;In Warabi, where the foreign-born population is 12.4 percent, Sinan said he has not encountered hostility.&nbsp;Slicing meat off the spit, his colleague Alyoruk Ismail Yasal, 29, agreed, but added: &quot;What&#39;s becoming difficult, in my opinion, is to find a job in Japan.&quot;&nbsp;Warabi and neighboring Kawaguchi are home to a sizeable Kurdish community that has become a lightning rod for opponents of immigration, who have staged small demonstrations.&nbsp;The Japan Kurdish Cultural Association in Kawaguchi has received messages from a &quot;small number of far-right and xenophobic elements&quot;, such as calling Kurds &quot;scum&quot;.&nbsp;&quot;Japan has structural issues &mdash; such as economic stagnation, declining birth rates, and an ageing population &mdash; that have been ongoing for nearly 30 years, and realistic solutions to these problems have not been found,&quot; the group told AFP.&nbsp;&quot;Instead, the artificial theme of &#39;foreigner problems&#39; is being brought to the forefront, seemingly diverting public attention toward it.&quot;&nbsp;False claimsThe atmosphere can be febrile outside politics, too.&nbsp;Japan&#39;s international aid agency cancelled a cultural and social exchange program with four African nations last month.&nbsp;It had triggered floods of emails and phone calls from people falsely believing that it was a new immigration policy.&nbsp;Kitakyushu city was reportedly inundated with complaints after inaccurate claims that it planned Muslim-friendly school lunches.&nbsp;Japanese residents in Warabi generally get along with the new arrivals, although there is some friction over issues such as separating rubbish.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s bad to refuse all foreigners Trump-style. But we can&#39;t welcome all of them with open arms,&quot; retiree Kohei Toyoda, 66, told AFP.

Japan's next prime minister, immigrants issue

Asia

Japan faces rising anti-immigrant rhetoric amid leadership change, economic strain, and misinformation, despite some communities welcoming foreigners like Turkish worker Gur Sinan.

Articles tagged with "anti-immigration fears"

Afghan man jailed for threating anti-migrant leader Nigel Farage in TikTok video

Japan's next PM faces growing anti-immigration fears