(London) Thousands of Britons took part in anti-racism rallies on Saturday in response to the far-right riots that have rocked the United Kingdom for a week.
The last major clashes between police and rioters took place on Monday evening, but police remain on alert for this weekend due to the risk of a resumption of the violence triggered by the murder of three young girls on July 29.
At the end of a week marked by a very firm judicial response, with hundreds of appearances and first convictions, as well as a first wave of anti-racist rallies on Wednesday, new demonstrations took place in many cities to denounce the recent xenophobic and Islamophobic violence.
The largest brought together some 5,000 people in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, where the police denounced several acts described as racist this week.
“This is the real Belfast you see here,” said Olivia Browne, a 21-year-old student interviewed by AFP, carrying a placard that read “Love your neighbour”. “We’ve always been a welcoming city and I hope that will continue to be the case.”
A mosque in Newtownards, east Belfast, was targeted again overnight with a petrol bomb – which was not lit – and vandalised, with police saying they were treating the case as a racist offence.
While the violence in Northern Ireland was initially sparked by clashes in England, police believe it was fuelled by ultra-conservative unionist paramilitaries in this province with a bloody past where inter-community tensions remain high.
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
At the end of a week marked by a very firm judicial response, with hundreds of appearances and first convictions, as well as a first wave of anti-racist rallies on Wednesday, new demonstrations took place in many cities to denounce the recent xenophobic and Islamophobic violence.
Prison sentences
Gatherings of hundreds of people have been reported across the UK: Newcastle and Manchester (northern England), Cardiff (Wales), Glasgow and Edinburgh (Scotland)…
In London, nearly a thousand people gathered outside the headquarters of the anti-immigration, anti-establishment Reform UK party, carrying placards reading “No to racism, no to hate”, without incident.
“I don’t like the right taking to the streets in my name,” Jeremy Snelling, 64, who attended the rally, told AFP. “I’m for open borders and refugees are a good thing,” he added, saying the people needed to be convinced by “argumentation” and not by the firmness of the police.
“It’s very important for immigrants in this country to see us here, white British people, saying: no, we don’t tolerate this,” insisted Phoebe Sewell, a 32-year-old Londoner.
The riots, the worst in Britain since 2011, have targeted mosques and migrant shelters. They erupted in the wake of a knife attack on July 29 that killed three girls in Southport, northwest England, amid online rumours that have been partly denied about the suspect, a 17-year-old boy.
The authorities attribute the calm over the past five days to the very firm judicial response, with more than 700 arrests, 300 indictments and the first prison sentences for rioters or online publications stirring up violence.
Silent until then, King Charles III thanked the police on Friday evening for their action to put an end to “the delinquency of a small number”, and praised the “spirit of solidarity” and “the compassion” of those who opposed it.