Protests turn violent as UK unrest spreads
LONDON—Protesters attacked police and started fires in the English city of Sunderland on Friday as violence spread to another northern city following Monday’s killing of three children in Southport.
Antiimmigrant demonstrators threw stones at police in riot gear near a mosque in the city before overturning vehicles, setting a car alight and starting a fire next to a police office, the BBC said.
Northumbria Police chief Supt. Helena Barron said in a statement, “The safety of the public is our utmost priority.”
“During the course of the evening those officers were met with serious and sustained levels of violence, which is utterly deplorable.”
More protests planned
Three police officers were taken to hospital for treatment, and eight people have so far been arrested for offences such as violent disorder and burglary, Barron added.
The demonstration in Sunderland was one of more than a dozen planned by antiimmigration protesters across the UK this weekend, including in the vicinity of at least two mosques in Liverpool, the closest city to where the children were killed.
Several antiracism counterprotests were also planned.
British police were out in force on Friday across the country and mosques were tightening security, officials said.
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of the girls in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop in the northwestern seaside town of Southport, a crime that has shocked the nation.
False information
Violent incidents erupted in the following days in Southport, the northeastern town of Hartlepool, and London in reaction to false information on social media claiming the suspect in the stabbings was a radical Islamist migrant.
In an attempt to quash the misinformation, police have emphasized that the suspect, Axel Rudakubana, was born in Britain.
Earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer made a second visit to Southport since the murders.
“As a nation, we stand with those who tragically have lost loved ones in the heinous attack in Southport, which ripped through the very fabric of this community and left us all in shock,” he said in a statement.
