Latest news with #riots
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Riots after Southport attack more similar to those in 1958 than in 2011, study finds
The riots that swept the UK last summer had more in common with race riots in the 1950s in Nottingham and Notting Hill, west London, than they did with disorder that broke out in 2011, academic researchers have found. Violence first erupted on the streets of Southport after the murder of three young girls, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Bebe King, six, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in the Merseyside town. The perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, was later jailed for a minimum of 52 years. The riot started on 30 July, a day after the attack, following misinformation that circulated online claiming the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker. The claim was pushed out by far-right social media accounts. The disorder then spread across England and Northern Ireland, with riots in cities and towns including London, Manchester, Hartlepool, Sunderland, Liverpool, Blackpool, Rotherham, and Belfast. It came to an end just over a week later after dozens of often large counter-demonstrations across the country. While the riots have often been referred to as 'far-right protests', researchers have found that the situation on the ground was actually more complex. The pre-print paper looked at three case studies – Bristol, Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent, and Tamworth. It used interviews and multiple secondary sources to understand what had happened and who was involved. 'Some people call these protests far-right protests,' said the lead author, John Drury, a professor of social psychology at the University of Sussex, 'but were they protests?' 'Well, they didn't take the usual form of protest,' he added. 'I mean, maybe you might call them some kind of direct action.' In the paper, the researchers said: 'Our evidence suggests that participants in the three riots comprised a 'racial' majority (i.e white people) seeking to attack minoritised ethnic groups. 'As such, these riots were unlike the waves of urban riots in the UK in the 1980s and 2011 (which involved an ethnic minority against authority). 'Arguably the summer riots of 2024 had more in common with the 'race' riots in Notting Hill and Nottingham in 1958 and those in Liverpool and Cardiff in 1919.' The violence in the summer of 1958 began in the St Ann's area of Nottingham, and was followed by similar disorder in Notting Hill, fuelled by tensions over increased migration from the Caribbean. Violent attacks were carried out by groups of white men, with them using weapons against Black people. Black homes were also targeted in arson attacks. In another spate of violent disorder in spring and summer of 1919, at a time of postwar job shortages, minority communities in port cities including Glasgow, Cardiff and Liverpool were targeted in racist attacks. The paper said that 'events largely comprised attacks rather than protests', pointing to 'the length of the collective actions, the relative absence of protest event paraphernalia and the unprovoked nature of the violence which at least half of those in each anti-immigrant participants engaged in.' Those attending the various 'protests', the researchers also found, were 'not just far-right activists or individuals affiliated with football 'risk' groups, but also non-affiliated individuals who were anti-immigration, people who were anti-police, and also 'bystanders' who were there to see or record exciting events or who joined in spontaneously'. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion While this was common from data across the three riots, 'proportions are hard to estimate', the paper said. 'There is insufficient evidence to suggest that the anti-immigrant crowds were homogeneous or that all present were equally committed to violent racist attacks,' the researchers said. 'This phrase far right was used about the events,' Drury said. But he added' 'Possibly it's a step from that then to say they're all equally racist.' Making assumptions about those taking part, can cause issues in that policy makers 'assume that the same remediation mitigation policies will work for all of them', Drury said. 'This is what the government started to do, I think, just like they made many assumptions in 2011 about who took part and why they took part, and rapidly rolled out policies that were found to be ineffective and inappropriate.' He gave the example of the then-government's troubled families initiative, which was introduced incorrectly and imagined that everybody who took had taken part had 'some kind of problem with their family upbringing'. Drury also warned: 'Labelling them all as if they're all far right, might actually drive them into the far right.' The research also found that at least four different parties were involved in the events – the anti-immigrant participants, police, counter-protesters, the targets of the actions (asylum seekers and Muslims), while local 'community defenders' were also present in Hanley. 'I guess what was striking was the differences between the three, [Hanley, Bristol, and Tamworth],' Drury said, with different levels of violence and different scales of counter-protest. 'I think that was a striking thing, the variety,' he added. He said that while 'we might talk about them as all the same kind of event', to fail to understand the nuances could cause issues in future prevention and policymaking, because'they were actually quite different'.
Russia Today
4 days ago
- General
- Russia Today
Football fans riot after PSG victory (VIDEOS)
Fans rioted after Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) stormed to their first-ever UEFA Champions League title, obliterating Inter Milan with a historic 5-0 rout in the final held in Munich. The French powerhouse made history as the first club to win a Champions League final by a five-goal margin, cementing their dominance on Europe's grandest stage. PSG's Desire Doue became the sixth player in UEFA Champions League history to both score and assist in a final. In Paris, euphoria erupted as fans flooded the streets, waving PSG scarves from car windows and setting off fireworks to celebrate the team's maiden Champions League triumph. But the festivities turned chaotic on the Champs-Elysees, where police deployed tear gas and pepper spray to quell unrest. PSG fans rioting in Paris causing chaos on the currently 4-0 up, if this is how they celebrate, imagine what would've happened if they'd lost? 😨😨 A police spokesperson said a car set ablaze near Parc des Princes and said dozens of arrests were made by the end of the night. Caos total en París: turbas de aficionados del PSG cortan el tráfico y disparan fuegos artificiales contra la policía. In Munich, footage captured PSG and Inter fans clashing violently on public transport, with bottles flying and fists swinging. According to media outlets, at least one PSG supporter was injured in an ambush at the Universitat subway station, with reports alleging that Inter hooligans wielded bladed weapons. 🚨 Torcidas de Inter e PSG entram em conflito antes da final da UEFA Champions League! #CasaDaChampionsVídeo: X/ParisByMatch The violence underscores the intense rivalries that often erupt during high-stakes European fixtures.
BBC News
28-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Middlesbrough tours aim to shed light on town's shared history
A town hit by riots last summer is shining a light on its community in an effort to "strip away people's preconceptions".Hundreds of people confronted police during protests in Middlesbrough in August, with more than £750,000 of damage estimated to have been was one of a number of violent outbreaks across parts of England in the wake of the murders of three girls in week, a series of free tours are being held, focusing on the area around Linthorpe Road where the disorder began, which feature audio recordings of several residents who have shared their memories of the town. Organiser Robert Nichols said the one-hour tours, which are part of Middlesbrough Local History Month, were a chance to "amaze and inspire". "We want to show people the streets where the riots happened and strip away any preconceptions they have, to show them the streets through other people's eyes," he said."The healing started the very next day when the community came out to clean up the streets." 'Healing' after riots Mr Nichols said many people did not know a lot about the town's history."It's all about sharing our heritage with new facts to learn and stories to amaze and inspire," he said."I wanted to talk about the people who have come into the town as there are so many."It was founded in 1830. Everybody came for industry. Before that, it was just a farm."The tour also includes Ayresome Gardens, which sits on top of what was Old Linthorpe Road Cemetery - home to 11,000 graves including 5,000 belonging to children. Khadim Hussain is another of those to have recorded his memories of life in the town over the past 50 or so moved to Middlesbrough in 1975 having initially relocated to Bradford when his family left Pakistan eight years several years working at one of ICI's local chemical plants as a research assistant, Mr Hussain and several family members opened a curry house on Linthorpe Road in later published a book about curries in 2006 and began compiling poetry after taking a creative writing course at Teesside University. "I came here in summer 1975 and have been here ever since," he said."Even though people here might be a different skin colour or religion, we share a culture."Middlesbrough is a friendly town. We know everyone and we're all part of a family even if we have different interests." 'Best-kept secret' Dominic Nelson-Ashley came to Middlesbrough from London in 1995 to take up a job as a careers later founded a social enterprise to help disadvantaged people gain work skills via creative arts and then launched a record label. He said he was shocked by last summer's riots and believes Middlesbrough and the wider North East have much to offer."That was not a true reflection of what I know this area is. It's one of the country's best-kept secrets," he said."Everything you could possibly want is in this area if you care to look for it."He highlighted how easy it was to access the seaside in nearby Saltburn and the countryside in Osmotherley, on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors."If you walk down Linthorpe Road, you can experience all the cultures of the world on one high street. That's fantastic," he said."People from outside Middlesbrough might say, 'Oh, that's the place with parmos', but there's so much more."The tours are free and start at 14:00 BST from the Dorman Museum, but people are asked to book a place. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
UK anti-Islam activist ‘Tommy Robinson' charged with harassment of two men
LONDON: Prominent British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has been charged with harassment causing fear of violence to two men around the time of the nationwide riots last year, prosecutors said on Wednesday. 'We have authorized the Metropolitan Police to charge Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, 42, with harassment causing fear of violence against two men,' a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesperson said in a statement. Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, is currently in prison over a separate contempt of court issue but is due to be released next week after winning a bid on Tuesday to trim the 18-month sentence. The CPS said the alleged offenses were committed between August 5 and 7 last year — when riots broke out at anti-immigration protests in towns and cities across Britain following the murder of three young girls in Southport, northwest England. Yaxley-Lennon, who describes himself as a journalist who exposes state wrongdoing and counts US billionaire Elon Musk among his supporters, was accused by some media and politicians of inflaming tensions at the time of the riots.
Reuters
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
UK anti-Islam activist 'Tommy Robinson' charged with harassment of two men
LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - Prominent British anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has been charged with harassment causing fear of violence to two men around the time of the nationwide riots last year, prosecutors said on Wednesday. "We have authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, 42, with harassment causing fear of violence against two men," a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) spokesperson said in a statement. Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, is currently in prison over a separate contempt of court issue but is due to be released next week after winning a bid on Tuesday to trim the 18-month sentence. The CPS said the alleged offences were committed between August 5 and 7 last year — when riots broke out at anti-immigration protests in towns and cities across Britain following the murder of three young girls in Southport, northwest England. Yaxley-Lennon, who describes himself as a journalist who exposes state wrongdoing and counts U.S. billionaire Elon Musk among his supporters, was accused by some media and politicians of inflaming tensions at the time of the riots.
