Tuesday, July 2, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 31
The UK government said on Tuesday that 6,000 specialist police were ready to deal with far-right rioting after another night of destructive troubles in English cities.
There has been a week of nightly riots in various cities since three children were killed in a mass stabbing.
On Monday, six people were arrested and several police officers injured when they were attacked by rioters hurling bricks and fireworks in Plymouth, southern England.
Officers in Belfast, Northern Ireland, were attacked as rioters attempted to set fire to a shop owned by a foreign national. Police said a man in his 30s was seriously assaulted and that they are treating the incident as a racially motivated hate crime.
A group of men who gathered in Birmingham, central England, to counter a rumoured far-right demonstration, forced a Sky News reporter off air shouting: “Free Palestine”. She was then followed by a man in a balaclava holding a knife.
Another reporter said he was chased by members of the group “with what looked like a weapon”, while police said there had also been incidents of criminal damage to a pub and a car.
Unrest broke out last Tuesday after three children were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England.
There have been hundreds of arrests around riots that have flared up since.
Justice minister Heidi Alexander told BBC Radio 4 that the government had freed up an extra 500 prison places and drafted in 6,000 specialist police officers to deal with the violence.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer again sought to reassure the nation that action was being taken.
He said after a cabinet meeting: “99.9% of people across the country want their streets to be safe and to feel safe in their communities, and we will take all necessary action to bring the disorder to an end.”
Source: AFP
