The London High Court has ruled that the word ”Paki” as used in football match chants is racist, overturning a previous ruling by magistrates that it was no more offensive in the context than ”Pom”, ”Yank” or ”Aussie”.
The appeal, heard on Monday, arose from a match between Port Vale and Oldham Athletic in October last year at Port Vale’s ground in Burslem, when up to 100 home supporters began chanting at Oldham fans: ”You are just a town full of Pakis.”
Oldham had been the scene of race riots between Asian and white youths in May 2001.
In the original case heard in the Stoke-on-Trent magistrate’s court, the district judge argued that ”Paki” was merely a shorthand expression for someone from Pakistan.
It belonged in a group of ribald terms, including ”Brit”, ”Pom”, ”Yank”, ”Aussie” and ”Kiwi” and was not in the more obviously insulting category of such national stereotypes as ”Frog” or ”Kraut”, he ruled.
But the High Court judges saw it differently.
”It is odd and a shame that this is so in this country,” Lord Justice Auld said.
”But the unpleasant context in which it is so often used has left it with a derogatory or insulting, racialist connotation. It is also all too familiar an expression to the courts, used as it so often is as a prelude to violence, whether provoking or offering,” he said. – Sapa-DPA