"Paki is just a shortened version of Pakistani - its literal meaning is 'the pure' - so why should anyone be afraid of being called pure? A native from Kazakhstan is a Kazakh, someone from Uzbekistan is an Uzbek; so why is someone from Pakistan not allowed to be called a Paki?"

Jeff Mirza, who was born in Pakistan but brought up in Essex, was questioned over the use of the term in his act “Meet Abu Hamsta and Paki Bashir” at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Mr Mirza, 49, was dressed in character as a butcher, called Paki Bashir, when he was questioned at the police station on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. He was warned that he could be arrested and charged if he continued to use the poster, although he is continuing to do so.
Mr Mirza said: “How on earth can I be accused of racism against my own community?”
His act centres on jokes about Pakistan and the wider Islamic world. His main character, Bashir, tells the audience he loves his family, “otherwise of his workforce” and says of Pakistan: “We also have a thriving gay community and they are also known as clerics.”
Other characters include Hamsta, a Saudi said to be al Qaeda’s ambassador of the arts in Luton. There is also Jameela, a woman in a burka, who tells how she was widowed when her first husband blew himself up as a suicide bomber at the third attempt.
“But a few years ago I realised that I am a Paki and I should be proud of that. Pakistan means Land of the Pure and what’s wrong with that?