AFP and Europa Press
The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 11, 2024, p. 17
London. Thousands of Britons took part in anti-racism demonstrations yesterday in reaction to the far-right riots that shook the United Kingdom for days at the beginning of the month.
At the end of a week marked by a firm judicial response and a first wave of anti-racist demonstrations on Wednesday, new protests took place in numerous cities denouncing xenophobic and Islamophobic violence.
There were demonstrations in Belfast (Northern Ireland), where the police recorded several acts described as racist this week, in Newcastle and Manchester, in Cardiff (Wales), Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In central London, thousands of people gathered outside the headquarters of the far-right British Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, called by the group Stand Up Against Racism.
We turned violence around
We feel that we have turned the situation around. The fact that they were unable to leave is proof of our mobilization.said Samira Ali, one of the organizers, in statements to the Association Press news agency. They would not have stopped if it had not been for our mobilization.he assured. A few days ago the atmosphere was very different“There were a lot of people who were scared, afraid to go out, thinking, ‘I’m going to get hit in the head with a brick,’ or ‘I’m going to get kicked in the face by a Nazi. ’ We turned it around in a week.”
Ali highlighted the choice of the Reforma headquarters as the starting point for the demonstration due to Farage’s stance against migration. We protest against those like Farage and his dangerous rhetoricargument.
The constant talk about stopping the boats, about migration being a problem, about refugees and Muslims being to blame. All this rhetoric has been replicated in the far-right riots. It has created the toxic atmosphere that feeds the radical stance on society.he added.
The riots were the worst in Britain since 2011 and targeted mosques and migrant accommodation centres. They erupted after a knife attack that killed three girls on July 29 in Southport amid online rumours, partly denied, about the origin of the perpetrator, a 17-year-old Muslim teenager.