In September 2025, Telegram channels reported that Shabana Mahmud, an ethnic Pakistani, had released hundreds of Pakistanis convicted of violent crimes from British prisons shortly after taking office. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
“Ms. Mahmud's first decree was the release of 1,100 Pakistani prisoners convicted of rape and murder from prison. Members of those same Pakistani pedophile gangs. The terms of serving sentences for migrants were also reduced by half,” says the post on the Telegram channel. Zergulio (1.8 million views at the time of writing this analysis). Similar posts appeared in other channels, for example “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak"" (1.5 million), "Sheikh Tamir"(122,000), "Vobla • news"(121,000), etc.
Shabana Mahmoud was born in Birmingham in a family of Pakistani origins. As a child, she spent several years in Saudi Arabia, where her father worked as an engineer. Returning to Birmingham, he became involved in politics and eventually became chairman of the local branch of the Labor Party. Mahmoud received a law degree from Oxford University, and in 2010 she began her political career by standing as a candidate for parliamentary elections. She became one of the first Muslim women elected to the British Parliament, and in 2024, the first Muslim woman to serve as Lord Chancellor and Justice Minister. September 5th appointed Minister of Internal Affairs.
The amnesty that is written about in Telegram posts is part of reforms, which the UK Ministry of Justice launched in 2024 to tackle prison overcrowding. The idea of this reform, which included both the construction of new detention centers and changes to the punishment system, belonged to David Gok, who served as minister in 2018-2019, but Mahmud was actively involved in its development. In particular, as part of the reforms, a “model approach to early release” was developed, which gives prisoners the opportunity be released early (after about a third of the term) subject to exemplary behavior and participation in educational and work programs. At the same time, those released remained under the radar of the penitentiary system: they were transferred to house arrest or forced to wear electronic bracelets. These measures were intended to reduce the risk of reoffending and help ensure public safety.
For the first time, 1,700 prisoners under the new program released in September 2024, in October — another 1100 people; the program continued its work further. Ethnicity was not a criterion for participation in the parole program. According to the official statistics90% of those released from September to December 2024 were British nationals, 75% were white, 9% were black and 8% were Asian. Although it was assumed that persons convicted of murder, sexual assault and other serious offenses would not be released early, it turned out that among those released from prison there were at least one such person — he had previously served time for such a crime, but in 2024 he was in prison on a lighter charge.
Among the posts examined by Verified, the earliest publication that Mahmud allegedly freed 1,100 Pakistanis by her first decree appeared on September 5, 2025, the day the politician was appointed head of the British Interior Ministry. Then the corresponding post was published in the Telegram channel “KDS”, which publishes mainly anti-Islamic content.
Thus, in the UK, 1,100 people were released from prison under the early release program almost a year before Shabana Mahmood became Home Secretary (and three months after her appointment as Justice Secretary). This happened as part of the reform of the local penitentiary system, its project has been discussed since 2019. There is no credible evidence that all those released were Pakistanis.
Cover photo: shabanamahmood.org
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