Dozens arrested in UK city riots

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Dozens of people were arrested during anti-immigrant protests that took place in many cities across the UK on Saturday.

– Other media news –

According to UK media, protests organized by far-right forces against the backdrop of the murder of three children in Southport ended in some cases in clashes with police and looting, TASS reported.

Police in several counties said 20 people were arrested in Lancashire, 10 in Staffordshire, six in Liverpool, four in Kingston-upon-Hull and two teenagers in Harlepool. Several arrests were made in Bristol, where rioting continued late into the night.

According to Sky News footage, a group of people looted a convenience store during the Manchester protests, while several other businesses, including a mobile phone shop, were looted in Liverpool. A car and a cafe were burned in Belfast, and several shops were destroyed in Kingston-upon-Hull.

In Liverpool, bottles and cobblestones were thrown at police by the crowd, and some protesters used fire extinguishers. Two officers were taken to hospital with suspected broken jaws and noses. In another incident, protesters knocked down and beat a police officer on a motorbike. The Daily Mail circulated photos of hooligans in Bristol throwing beer kegs at police cars.

The protests in the UK come after an incident in the English town of Southport, where 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana attacked children with a knife during a dance workshop on July 29. The attacker was immediately arrested.

He was born in Cardiff, Wales, and lived in the village of Banks, near Southport. According to the Times, Rudakubana is an ethnic Rwandan and his family fled to the UK from the genocide in their homeland. The victims of the attack were three girls aged six, seven and nine. Eight other children were injured, with five of them in critical condition but stabilized. In addition, a yoga teacher and a staff member at the centre were seriously injured.

According to the government, one of the reasons for the riots was the information released after the tragedy that the attacker was an asylum seeker.